


Swamp Phoenix

by WitchOfTheWestCountry



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Awkwardness, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Very unlikely resolution, french sex talk, just humour me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-18 14:08:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13683255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchOfTheWestCountry/pseuds/WitchOfTheWestCountry
Summary: Lucas isn't right, and Steph really wants to make it work, but is it worth it?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Working title.  
> I rarely have problems thinking of titles but this one really stumped me.  
> This was meant to be a one-shot smut but due to the specifications it somehow gained life and grew and mutlitplied and the lady I wrote it for has been waiting so patiently that I split it into two parts, just so she could have something to be going on with.....

_ September 2014 _

 

_ She was going to leave him. _

It was a familiar sentiment for Steph, but never usually at a moment like this: lost in the sticky aftermath of sex whilst he still lay on top of her. Times like these were the dirty reward for her patience, for her willingness to put up with him, and she never thought about leaving him then.

They lay in a hurriedly burrowed out nest in his workroom, huddled in a cave of dirty tarps and threadbare cushions amongst the  _ Mad Max _ chic of his workspace. They were surrounded by half-finished projects and metal shavings, the smell of oil and sawdust in the air. He was still slumped over her, heart hammering to beat the band, his breathing still puffing harshly in her ear, and she risked putting an arm around him then, risked hugging him against her.

He wasn’t the physical type - didn’t care for snuggling and cuddling - and sex was generally the only time he laid hands on her, so she was accustomed to making the most of it.

He was affectionate, in his way. She knew how he worked now, knew that he was being loving when he tossed her a can of beer without her asking, or when she came to see him and he stopped what he was doing to greet her. Those moments had sustained her all this time, had kept her going. That and the little gifts he bestowed on her - the oddments of inventions he gave her, little gadgets he’d designed with her in mind. Even the occasional sculpture, something hewn from a bit of wood or melded together out of scraps of metal. They were surprisingly intricate, these little offerings, and he gave them to her casually, absentmindedly, as if not wanting to draw attention to them. She got the impression they embarrassed him.

Lucas...wasn’t right. 

She hadn’t known it the first time she met him, but she knew now.

 

_ February 2014 _

 

_ He was stumbling out of the hardware store with his arms full, a pleased expression gracing his odd features. Steph had no idea of the names of the things he carried, but his expression ignited some interest in her. _

_ She liked enthusiasm. She liked it when people were passionate about their interests - even if it was something that didn't interest her personally. And from the look on his face the stuff he held was no mere home improvement chore: It was a project, something he was doing for pleasure. _

_ People cleared out of his way when he passed, flinching as though his touch would infect them with something, and she saw more than one person sneer; saw more than one person murmur to their companion with lips curled in distaste. Steph didn't like that one bit. _

_ He barely seemed to notice, but there was a little twitch in the muscle beneath his left eye as someone laughed nearby - an involuntary tic that betrayed annoyance and maybe even upset. He walked with a slouch, conscious or unconscious she didn't know, his shoulders hunched a little in a defensive posture and Steph thought he might be familiar enough with the attitudes around him to have come by his gait to shield himself a little from the disapproval. _

_ She felt sorry for him - a condescending emotion to be sure, she was aware of that - but there was something else too. Something she had difficulty pinpointing. She'd seen him around a few times before, and had noticed him for his build primarily. She'd always liked a skinny man. There was something so vulnerable about them, as though they lacked a protective layer. Which was true, she supposed. A naked man with little fat or muscle was more exposed than his larger counterparts, his veins and bones more visible. She found it fascinating and erotic. _

_ His face drew her too. He was by no means conventionally attractive with his big hooked nose and high forehead, but his cheek- and jawbones were marvelous in her opinion and his eyes were just astonishing. Pale blue, so intense they looked like they could pierce through metal. Or clothing…. _

_ She had been unable to decide, the first times she'd seen him, whether she was attracted to him, so she'd kept looking and after a while discovered she was thinking about him whenever she had an idle moment. And now, seeing him disgruntled amongst an unfriendly crowd, she decided she probably was. _

_ That complicated things. If she hadn't realised her attraction she could have been much more straightforward. As it was, she now ran the risk of making herself look foolish….. _

 

_ He'd dropped something. She could see him eyeing the item on the floor with a helpless look on his face, no doubt trying to decide whether to leave it for the time being whilst he dumped his other stuff or whether to attempt to pick it up. If he tried the former someone could conceivably step on it and damage it. With the latter, he ran the risk of dropping everything else trying to retrieve that one thing. _

_ People were staring, making him visibly uncomfortable, but nobody was helping. _

_ Steph made a decision, made more out of compassion than attraction, and picked it up for him. _

_ “Here,” she said, perching it on top of the heap he carried. _

_ He stared at her blankly, face not registering any kind of understanding, and she could almost see him rifling through his brain to find the right response. _

_ “Thanks,” he said finally, a little crease of a frown gathering between his eyebrows as though he was wondering if that had been the correct thing to say. _

_ More likely he was wondering why she'd done it. _

_ “No problem,” said Steph easily, and turned away before she could say anything else and ruin the moment. _

_ She walked away with her heart beating a rapid rhythm,  hummingbird wings fluttering in her chest. _

_ It had gone well, she reflected. A good first impression. _

_ She had to cross the road, and as she looked into the oncoming traffic to her left she saw him, still stood on his spot on the sidewalk, staring at her. _

 

_ After that, she saw him around a lot more. Never face on, just a hooded back or a quarter profile. A glimpse of a stubbled chin, a flash of a blue eye.  _

_ At first, she thought she was just more aware of him, but as time went on she began to suspect he was...not following her, but orbiting her, as though she had her own gravitational pull. _

_ This went on for a couple of weeks, catching sight of him at odd moments, until one of her co-workers finally confirmed her suspicions. _

_ “I don't wanna worry you, Steph,” she said one day. “But you do realise Lucas Baker is stalking you, right?” _

_ They were taking a break, grabbing a coffee, and the statement came out of nowhere. Steph was so unprepared for it that she floundered, not sure what Amy was talking about. _

_ “What? Who? Lucas Baker?” _

_ Amy nodded. _

_ “Yeah, you know. Skinny. Big nose. Looks like somethin’ the cat dragged in. Kinda creepy…” _

_ Steph was ashamed that she recognised the description straight away, but her colleague’s choice of words irked her. _

_ “I know who you mean. But he's not stalking me. And I don't think he's creepy.” _

_ “You don't? Gosh!” _

_ Amy looked like her world was rocked, eyes getting wide, mouth dropping open. A complete overreaction as far as Steph was concerned. _

_ Amy was a typical Southern Belle,  blonde and blue-eyed. Wholesome looking. It was no wonder she looked down on the likes of Lucas Baker. Still. There was no need to be unkind. _

_ “I have been seeing him around a lot though. He probably just recognises me as a friendly face,” said Steph. _

_ “Well, whatever honey. All I'm sayin’ is I seen him followin’ you from work more than once. I'd be careful o’ him, I was you. Don't want him knowin’ where ya live. Boy ain't right, in my opinion.” _

_ Steph gave a neutral smile. _

_ “I'll be fine,” she said. _

 

_ Someone was following her. _

_ The conversation with Amy had played on her mind all afternoon and now, as she walked home, she found it had made her paranoid. _

_ It was getting near dusk, and she tried to concentrate on the gaudy orange and pink sunset, but the further she walked the more convinced she became that she wasn't walking alone. _

_ Whoever it was kept their distance, giving themself away only by an odd scuffing footstep, but Steph’s senses were strained for any little clue and the presence that lingered just off the edge of hearing was as obvious to her as the sound of her own breathing. _

_ She caught a glimpse of something at one point - not a person but a long rangy shadow thrown against the side of a building when she turned her head, a shadow that walked with a lazy slump. _

_ It was Lucas. It had to be. She didn't know if it was stealth or shyness that kept him out of sight but she hoped for the latter. _

_ In a movie she'd have ducked down a side alley and lain in wait to confront him, but she couldn't see herself doing that. Better to just walk and hope he'd eventually pluck up the courage to speak to her… _

_ She reached home without her mysterious companion making contact, and got her key out in advance so she didn't have to spend time fussing on her doorstep. The footsteps that had been trailing her for blocks finally stopped as she walked up her path, and she was relieved, but as she sorted through her keys something else drew her attention. _

_ It was a rose, crafted from scrap metal, it's edges smoothed and its surface buffed to a dull sheen. Despite its material of construction it was light and delicate, it's petals thin and curved, put together with a skill that was astonishing. _

_ It stuck out from the keyhole of her apartment door, slender wire stem poked in, and she pulled it out with care, marvelling at the craftsmanship that had gone into it. It should have looked tacky, by rights, but the more she studied it the more amazed she was at the detail. _

_ She turned, cradling the steely bloom against her palm, eyes searching the growing shadows that surrounded her, and in the darkness of a doorway across the street she thought she saw an outline of a hooded figure, watching her reaction.  _

 

_ A day passed. _

_ Two. _

_ She hadn't seen him at all, and she was wondering if he regretted his impulsive little gift, but on the third day when she left work he was there, standing by the doorway with his hood up, waiting for her. _

_ “Oh! Hello,” said Steph. “Lucas isn't it?” _

_ He hesitated before nodding, like he was unwilling to give up even that little piece of himself. What she could see of him under his hood suggested acute awkwardness. _

_ He shifted from foot to foot, chewing on his bottom lip. _

_ “Did you like my present?” he asked eventually.  _

_ “The rose? That was from you?” said Steph. “It's amazing. Did you make that yourself?”. _

_ “Uh-huh. With my own hands.” _

_ She looked at his hands. Despite the swagger in his statement they were hidden, bundled into the womb of his hoodie’s pockets. Even though she couldn't see them she somehow knew they were bunched into fists in there, possibly so tight his fingernails dug into his palms. _

_ She was wondering what she could say to put him at ease when he spoke again, a rush of words exploding out of him with barely any gaps between. _

_ “I was wonderin’ if you wanted to hang out with me sometime.” _

_ Someone passing by heard his question and sniggered, and Steph was forced to watch him cringe down into his hood like a turtle receding into its shell before she could drown out the unkind sound with her reply. _

_ “Look, never mind. It don't matter. Was just a thought.” _

_ He started to turn away and Steph reached out instinctively to grab at him, halting her hand just before it reached him. _

_ “No! I mean yes! I'd like to.” _

_ He turned back, regarding her suspiciously from under his eyebrows. _

_ “Really?” he asked. _

_ And that was how she started dating Lucas Baker. _

 

_ It didn't take her long to work out that that Lucas wasn't right. There was something off about him, something distant. It would have been easy to put it down to social anxiety,  but she got the feeling it went deeper than that. _

_ He was pleasant to her - respectful even, to the point that a month passed and he didn't lay a finger on her. Didn't even attempt to kiss her or cop a feel though she would have welcomed that. He was distant with it, absent minded. She quickly learned that had she touched him that day on the sidewalk when he'd finally asked her out he would have recoiled from her, possibly pushed her away. He didn't like touching. Even when she accidentally made contact he would flinch, shy away from her careless elbow or straying knee. _

_ They did exactly what he suggested at first - they hung out. Mostly loitered around the barn next to his family’s house where he'd carved out his little isolated niche and where he preferred to spend his time. Sometimes he took her out to the swamps, where he would at last become animated,  pointing out items of interest, telling her about the habits of alligators. He was a font of knowledge, full of information both useless and  useful, at it was times like these that really warmed her to him,  seeing his normally sullen face animate, seeing the light kindle behind his eyes. _

_ She met his family,  much against his will. Zoe promised to be a good friend if he allowed it, and his mother in particular was a delight, pleased, it seemed, to be able to welcome her with trademark Southern hospitality. Steph loved Marguerite. _

_ Lucas’s father was an enigma. There was tension between them, she could tell,  though Jack was charming to her, a twinkly bearded man with a never ending supply of dad jokes and sober advice. Yet something didn't gel. He was snappish with Lucas, impatient and stern. It bothered her. _

_ It wasn't until after the first month of their strange courtship that Lucas finally thawed out to her, by which point Steph had been considering calling it a day. _

_ Lucas had brought a bottle of rum to the barn, smuggled out in a brown paper sack, and they passed it back and forth awkwardly while Steph tried to pluck up the courage to tell Lucas it wasn't working - whatever “It” was. She still wasn't sure. _

_ He confounded her. She'd never met anyone like him: A brilliant mind caged by a introverted personality, a brain capable of so much more than he'd achieved but that he seemed unwilling to let loose. He brooded and tampered and invented in the safe little nook of his sanctuary but rarely ventured outside his own thoughts. It was tragic, really, and very frustrating. _

_ “Steph….?” _

_ Steph pulled herself out of her thoughts. She became aware that she'd been sitting staring at him for the past few minutes without intending to, and he looked uncomfortable. _

_ “Oh...sorry,” she said. _

_ But it didn't seem to be her unwavering vacant stare that was bothering him. _

_ “I been wonderin’,” he continued. “Do you like me?” _

_ The question didn't really surprise her. Beneath the “fuck-off-world, I-don't-care-about-anything” demeanour he portrayed she sensed he was deeply insecure. _

_ She smiled to reassure him. _

_ “Yes, I do. You're remarkable,” she said. _

_ “No, I mean….do you  _ like  _ me?” he said, laying an emphasis on the word with a meaningful raise of his eyebrows. _

_ “Oh!” _

_ Now she was surprised. He was looking at her with an intensity she wasn't accustomed to from him, eyes boring into her as if he could pick the answer out of her mind. _

_ She felt uneasy now, unsure how to proceed. What if she answered in the affirmative and he followed it up by telling her he didn't  _ like  _ her that way? It would be humiliating. _

_ But she couldn't lie - not with him hanging on, waiting for a reply. _

_ She took the bottle from him, using it as a distraction, taking a deep swig that made her eyes water, but even so she could still make out his face behind the shield of the bottle, the cold blue orbs dissecting her psyche. _

_ She swallowed the burn, gasping around the fumes. _

_ “Yes. Yes I do,” she told him, and she saw his face soften and relax in response. _

_ He was relieved, she realised, and straight on the tail of that realisation came another: He wasn't just asking out of casual interest. He liked her too. _

_ All of a sudden the pressure of his gaze became a physical thing, and she wasn't sure if it was the rum that was now creating the slow warmth in her chest and belly. _

_ She'd thought about him, all alone in her bed. Of course she had. Thought about what it would be like to fuck him, wondered how it would feel to have that stringy body pressed up against her. Some nights she'd been so fraught with unfulfilled need and frustration she'd promised herself she'd make the first move, let him know how she felt, but when daylight came she could never summon the nerve. _

_ Lucas took the bottle back from her, looking pleased, and helped himself to a drink. She watched his Adam's apple bob as he gulped the liquor down - more than he'd drunk before, and then he was screwing the lid back on with unsteady hands. She couldn't tell if it was booze, excitement or nervousness affecting his normally confident fingers, but after he'd  put the bottle carefully aside he turned to her. _

_ “You wanna?” he asked. _

_ She didn't need to ask what he was referring to - it was written all over his face and in the raised ridge creeping down the leg of his jeans, and she understood now that it hadn't been lack of interest that had caused him to be offhand with her. It had required the false courage of alcohol to work up the nerve to make this move, clumsy as it was. _

_ But he was asking for consent, that was the main thing. Whatever the people of Dulvey thought about him, she'd met far worse men: Men that never even thought about whether she wanted them before trying it on, and the simple question warmed her like the rum had done. _

_ “Yes,” she said for the third time in as many minutes. _

_ He leaned over her, bringing his face close to hers slowly. He was giving her time to change her mind, she thought, leaving her an opportunity to turn her face away or shrink back. She wondered how many times he'd been rejected. _

_ She was sat at an angle on the end of the old couch, her knees pointed vaguely towards him, and he planted one hand on the couch arm, the other by her hip, his fist sinking into the stuffing of the threadbare cushion. His breath wafted a spicy blend of rum and cigarettes into her face and then he was kissing her sloppily, missing her top lip on the first attempt and snagging a portion of her chin before he repositioned. _

_ They were both a little drunk, a little bleary, and with the buzz of spirits thrumming through her veins Steph didn't mind the inaccuracy. Instead, she felt a sense of triumph that the time had finally come. _

_ His tongue flopped into her mouth, probing round her gums in expertly, but then it withdrew and his teeth fastened on her lower lip, trapping it. _

_ He made a little grunting noise and she felt one of his knees land between hers. He pressed down harder on her lips, tilting her head back until it nestled in the crook formed by the couch’s arm and back. Other than his lips he wasn't touching her, and Steph took the plunge, reaching up to grab at his waist. Her hands sank through space and the layers of his baggy clothes until she found his body, seeming frail in her clutches yet taut and wiry with tension. _

_ He didn't flinch away, which was encouraging, and it apparently inspired him to be more adventurous. _

_ She felt his right hand crawl to her thigh, tentative as he gripped her through her skirt. She accepted it with a little murmur of approval, and pulled him down onto her. _

_ They were touching from face to groin now, and it was the most contact she'd ever had with him. _

_ His hard-on was a distracting presence, grinding against the front of her skirt, pressing into the gap between her thighs. His other hand slipped beneath the hair at the back of her neck, intimate and secretive. _

_ He moved his mouth from her lips to her throat, mumbling something she couldn't make out. She felt his teeth nipping at her flesh before turning into a bite. She thought about turning up for work tomorrow with hickies above her collar and panicked. _

_ “No marks where people can see, Lucas!” she gasped. _

_ He hesitated for a moment, and she worried he'd be upset, but he stopped biting and kissed her there instead. _

_ Lucas prised himself away from her just to give him enough room to get to her, fumbling under the hem of her skirt, his breathing quick and eager, fingertips pressing against the crotch of her panties. _

_ He groaned when he felt the dampness seeping through the cotton, smearing his fingers into it. _

_ Steph opened her legs to give him better access. High on a mixture of rum and validation his amateurish manipulations were thrilling at that moment. She'd thought he wasn't attracted to her, but she'd been Wrong. She wondered if he was feeling the same rush she was. _

_ He was pulling her panties aside, finding her pussy and pushing his fingers in. _

_ Steph felt a brief stab of disappointment that he'd completely bypassed her clit - another man who didn't know what he was doing - but just as she was about to open her mouth to make a suggestion she paused. He had two fingers in her, and he was twisting his wrist, angling them up inside her, and she sighed as they curled upwards, finding a sweet spot. _

_ He was muttering, more to himself than to her, lips moving in a ticklish pattern against her neck. _

_ “C’mon, Lucas….you know how to do this….you learned it…” _

_ The pad of his thumb grazed her clit uncertainly, and he twitched his fingers inside her. Steph twitched with them, ass lifting up from the couch to meet them, and Lucas lifted his head, staring at her face with disconcerting concentration. _

_ “Is that right?” he asked her. “Is that good?” _

_ Steph nodded breathlessly. It was better than good, she realised. It was great. _

_ A small smile curled his mouth at the corners and he worked his thumb against her, skidding in her juices as he stroked from the inside. _

_ “I read about this,” he told her in a conversational tone. “An’ watched a video. Guy demonstrated on a watermelon. Didn't know if it’d be any good, but I practised anyway, just in case.” _

_ Steph rolled her eyes up. He may have been performing magic with his clever hand but his talking was putting her off. She wanted to be supportive, wanted to relax and enjoy what he was doing, as he was clearly pleased his studies had paid off, but it was difficult. _

_ “How….how did you practice?” she asked, the surrealness of the situation not escaping her. _

_ Lucas frowned. _

_ “On a watermelon!” he told her, as if it should have been obvious. _

_ His fingers hadn't stopped the entire time, and the contrast between his commentary and the miracle he was working was incongruous to say the least. Steph grabbed at his shoulder and moaned, biting down on her lip. _

_ “That guy really knew what he was talkin’ about,” he marvelled. _

_ “Lucas….could you stop talking about it?” pleaded Steph. “It's kind of counterproductive….” _

_ “Oh! Oh yeah. Sure. Sorry.” _

_ His face flushed with embarrassment and he dropped his head a little, but he still watched her reaction with the air of an incredulous scientist who couldn't believe his experiment was working. _

_ It shouldn't have worked, Steph reflected. It should have felt clinical, or cold, or distant. But his obvious pleasure in being successful gave her pleasure too, and she wanted him to know how much she appreciated his efforts. _

_ Steph didn't hold back: She let herself go,  was as vocal as she dared, making all the moans and the exclamations she was accustomed to make when she was having fun. She moved her hips in time with his questing fingers, rode his hand with abandon, and to her gratification he responded, his own excitement at her visible enjoyment spurring them both on. _

_ His hard-on was constant, grinding into her thigh as though he was trying to drill a new hole in her, and the small sounds creeping from his throat as he watched her face only added to her pleasure. _

_ When she came, she locked her hands around his neck, said his name, closed her legs around him, and he groaned, his face an echo of her own expression. _

_ Steph sagged back onto the old couch, feeling her heart pound, the tingle of her orgasm a warm wash through her body, and she closed her eyes to concentrate on it. _

_ Lucas pulled his fingers out, and she’d barely registered the fact before she heard through sound of a belt buckle, a zip. _

_ She looked up at him through the haze of her afterglow, and he was pushing his jeans down eagerly. _

_ “My turn now!” he said, pulling the elastic of his shorts away from his belly. _

_ Steph wondered if he'd want his dick sucked, and after the orgasm he'd given her she would have happily obliged, but his gaze was focused on the split between her legs where her skirt fell between. _

_ “I got a condom,” he told her. “Should I wear it?” _

_ “Yes,” she said. _

_ She'd been saying it a lot. She was Yes-Girl today, agreeing to everything. _

_ He tore the foil package open with his teeth, making her wince, but he put it on properly, pinching the tip like the directions said and unrolling it carefully. _

_ Lucas seemed to like everything straightforward, with instructions to follow. If only she'd given him a book on dating at the beginning, she thought: She might have been fucked a lot sooner. _

_ He lifted her skirt, and again didn't bother to remove her panties, just pulled them aside. His hands were shaking despite his apparent confidence, and she had already decided that if he wasn't a virgin she'd eat the couch she was lying on. _

_ He didn't speak, too busy concentrating on where he was aiming, and he manoeuvred himself between her legs, shuffling forward on his knees. _

_ She watched with interest as he seemed to psyche himself up, not daring to look her in the eye now. This must be a momentous occasion for him, she thought. She wanted to make it special for him. _

_ She reached up, putting a hand on the back of his head, caressing the soft hair there. He cringed briefly at her touch, but appeared to relax a bit after. _

_ “Go on Lucas,” she told him in a soft voice. “I want you.” _

_ “Dunno why,” he told her, his voice naked of any pretense, still unwilling to meet her gaze. “Ain't nobody ever wanted me before.” _

_ “Well, I do. So just relax and go with it.” _

_ He nodded. She was giving him instructions, giving him direction, and that had to be reassuring for him. Lucas knew how to follow directions.  _

_ “Put your dick in me, Lucas. Put it in and fuck me.” _

_ “Okay,” he said. _

 

_ He was bigger than she'd expected, given his build, and there was a small amount of pain as he entered, but she was wet and ready from his preparations and the pain was good. It was the kind of smart that meant she'd remember this in the following days, be sore and sated from it, be reminded every time she moved. _

_ She arched her back up, welcoming him in. He made a muffled sob when he was fully in, burying his face in her shoulder, clawed hands clutching at her legs, and she cradled his head against her. _

_ “That feels good,” she told him. “It feels good, Lucas.” _

_ He pulled partially out, tried another cautious thrust. Still riding the dwindling crest of her orgasm, Steph looked dreamily up at the high ceiling above, murmuring encouragement, urging him on. He managed to find a rhythm he liked, and began the steady climb, pumping his cock into her with more urgent speed. She sensed he was holding back, and told him to go harder. _

_ “You sure?” he panted. “Don't wanna hurt you…” _

_ “You won't. Go on.” _

_ He nodded, repositioned himself. Rising up on his knees he pushed her skirt up so he could see what he was doing and began to fuck her harder, gritting his teeth in an unconscious snarl. His narrow hips bumped against the inside of her thighs, and she opened her legs some more, registering the changes on his face as her pelvis tilted. He was butting against her cervix now, bumping her body into the couch cushions, his brow furrowing with effort. _

_ “Oh, shit!” he said, sounding surprised. “Oh! Oh, fuck, that's -” _

_ She never found out what it was, as he came then, startling himself and her with the suddenness, but she couldn't complain after what he'd done for her. Short or not, he struck her as a quick learner and he'd learn how to hold back. Because now they'd done it once, she hoped there would be many more such encounters in the future. _

 

_ She wasn't wrong. Not really. His appetite was healthy, as was hers, but he never really developed any kind of “tell”, any notion that he was about to get romantic. His advances were sporadic and unpredictable, and the constant uncertainty was exciting in its way, keeping her on edge. Sometimes they'd spend an entire evening together before he'd suddenly pounce on her. Sometimes she'd barely get through the door to the barn before he was upon her, pinning her to the dusty wall in a fever of excitement. She'd been fucked on those bare wooden stairs at the entrance more times than she could count, and retained a certain affection for them despite how they bruised her back. _

_ He grew more confident, and his scientific mind was always open to new experiences. The first time he went down on her they'd been watching a movie and he'd telegraphed his intentions by putting down his beer and saying: “Steph, can I try something?” _

_ It had, in all honesty, been mind blowing, leaving her in a breathless puddle of her own juices and barely capable of responding when he'd followed it up with his usual brisk fucking. _

_ Another time, he showed her an online article he’d read about multiple orgasms, and knowing him as she did now she tried to mentally prepare herself. If he read something, he wanted to test its accuracy, and this time was no exception. _

_ He’d worked her into a helpless frenzy sitting in the dubious comfort of his computer chair, his face almost demonic in the flickering backlight of the computer monitor, greedy and ravenous as she came over and over, and it had taken her a full hour to recover afterwards. Her pussy had been raw and twitchy, agonisingly over sensitised, and he'd waited respectfully until she was ready to receive him. _

_ He was an unselfish lover, she'd say that for him, and exquisitely skilled once he'd learned something. But…. _

_ There was something missing. There were no hugs or cuddles when he wasn't horny, and even when he was she had to snatch her affection when she could, holding him for as long as possible afterwards until he grew impatient and prised himself out of her arms. _

_ He complimented her, true, telling her she looked good, admiring her new hairstyle or a dress she wore. He told her how much he liked her company. But he was distant. Unreachable. Sometimes completely removed. _

_ If he was working on a project, she could spend an entire day with him and barely exchange 10 words with him if he was really absorbed. On these occasions, she'd drift over to the main house till he was ready to give her some attention, and talk to his mother or sister. _

_ It was on one of these days that Marguerite told her something that explained a lot about Lucas. _

 

_ Marguerite was making a pie from the apples Steph had brought her, picked from the tree near her home. She'd watched the apples the previous year grow heavy, unnoticed, and fall from the tree and rot on the ground. The unappreciated apples somehow reminded her of herself, and this year she had been determined not to let them go to waste. _

_ As Marguerite rolled pastry, she talked. _

_ “Lucas was a happy child. So friendly an’ inquisitive! So affectionate an’ lovin’, too. Always kissin’ me an’ cuddlin’ up. His favourite seat in the house was on my lap, an’ when Zoe came along….he was so proud of his little sister. Used to play by her crib to keep her company - in case she got lonely, he said - an’ he could hardly wait till she was big enough to run around an’ start playin’ with him. I couldn't have asked for a sweeter little boy.” _

_ Steph tried to think of a way to frame the question that was looming in her mind, but in the end she could only be blatant. _

_ “So...what happened?” she asked. _

_ She didn't need to elaborate. Marguerite knew what she meant. The older woman's face clouded, a stratus of sorrow layering over her features. _

_ “He had an accident,” she said. “Used to be an old tree out front, an’ Lucas did love to climb it. But I noticed it had started to die, an’ I told Jack he should cut it down before it blew over in a storm an’ damaged the house. Jack never got round to it, though. Always said he would, but never did. An’ one day, my sweet boy was climbin’ it, an’ the branch he was on gave way. Dropped him to the ground. He hit his head on a rock at the foot of a the tree, an’ I tell you - I thought we'd lost him for sure. Even started plannin’ his funeral. But he survived, through some miracle, an’ you bet I was overjoyed. _

_ “He was different afterwards, though. Distant. Didn't want snuggles no more. Didn't wanna kiss me or sit on my lap. He was still smart - oh, you betcha! Smart as a whip! - but only certain stuff interested him. Machines an’ robots. That's when he started inventin’. He always was smart, o’ course, but after the accident he didn't like what he called “arty” stuff. Didn't wanna learn the piano any more. Stopped talkin’ his French with me. I'd been teachin’ him, you see - wanted him to be bilingual. But he lost enthusiasm for it all.” _

_ “That's….terrible…” said Steph for want of anything better to say. _

_ Marguerite shrugged as though it didn't really matter, but the lines on her face told a different story. _

_ “Oh, I've cried for that little boy I lost, believe me. I've grieved. But, well, God wouldn't o’ done it if he didn't have a reason. An’ he let me keep my son, after all. Could o’ taken him back. So we have to be thankful.” _

_ The woman paused in the act of laying her pastry in the pie dish. _

_ “You know, I asked him once, when he was 12, why he liked his machines and his robots so much. An you know what he said? He said: ‘Momma, if a robot has somethin’ wrong with it, you can fix it, or you can break it down for parts an’ recycle it. People ain't like that. People are unpredictable. Don't never know how they're gonna act.’” _

_ Marguerite shrugged helplessly. _

_ “Kids at school were mean to him, on account o’ his accident. God knows why. Reckon that affected him too much an’ he just gave up on people.” _

_ She smiled at Steph. _

_ “‘Cept for you, o’ course. Honey, you must be special….” _

 

_ September 2014 _

 

She didn't feel special right now, lying in the barn with Lucas still on top of her. Not the way Marguerite had meant. Marguerite had implied that she was some kind of healing influence on him, that she'd changed him. But she hadn't. All she done was fucked him, and good as it was it wasn't the same thing.

He was starting to get fidgety, and she recognised the signs: In a minute or so he'd be squirming out of her embrace, pushing himself away from her. Creating distance between them that was physical and emotional at the same time.

No amount of amazing sex was worth this isolation. A thousand orgasms wouldn't make up for the fact that she couldn't snuggle up with him at night, or sit on his lap as they watched TV. Or go out to dinner or the movies or with friends.

She had to end it. She just had to find the right time to do it.

In the moments before he lifted himself off her she let her fingers wander to his head, tracing the long, brutal indent of the scar beneath his hair.

 

_ October 2014 _

 

She'd known he wouldn't take it well, and had expected either tears or anger, but not this: The blank stare; the complete lack of emotion.

“Are you going to say anything?” she asked, unnerved by his lack of response.

“Is there any point?” he asked.

“I don't know, Lucas. It's -”

She wanted to say “normal” but that word wouldn't do. Not with Lucas.

“It's  _ usual _ ,” she said.

He turned away from her and began fiddling with something on his work bench.

“Sounds like your mind’s made up,” he said. “Nothin’ I can say to make any difference.”

He pulled his hood up, and the gesture gave her a pang. He hadn’t worn his hood up in her presence since they’d started dating, and she’d taken it as a symbol of trust, of being comfortable in her presence.

He hunched over his bench.

“But Lucas -”

“But what?”

Now there was emotion in his voice, but without being able to see his face she couldn’t tell what it was.

“You don’t wanna be with me no more? Fine. I ain’t gonna beg. If I did somethin’ wrong, maybe….?”

He left the question hanging, and she realised that he was “saying something” after all. He was asking her “Why?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Lucas,” she said, and she wanted to cry all of a sudden at the knowledge he was probably scouring his brain for something he might have said or done, when in reality he’d done nothing. And that was the point.

“It’s just that I can’t see a future in us being together.”

He snorted.

“Aw, y’all can see into the future, that it? Didn’t know you could do that. That’s a real talent!”

She didn’t mind his sarcasm. She knew he used it as a defence, and he had every right to be defensive. Lucas didn’t understand relationships, not really. Probably he didn’t understand friendships either. He’d been happy with their arrangement, and had no doubt assumed she was too.

It was beyond the realm of his comprehension, their situation, her discontent, and he could analyse it forever and a day and still come to no conclusion. People weren’t machines. It wouldn’t take a squirt of oil to free up the joints in their relationship, or a piece of solder to fix it up. It would take more than he was able to give her, and the knowledge made her sadder than she ever thought she’d be.

“I’m sorry, Lucas. It’s been fun….” she said.

“Yeah. It has. An’ you’ve had your fun, so now it’s over. Whatever. Didn’t expect it to last this long, I’m bein’ honest.”

His voice was dull and limp, the words falling flat between them, and Steph knew she had to leave them lying there, ignore her instinct to pick them up and breathe life into them.

“Guess this is goodbye, then.” he said. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

Lucas started up his power drill, effectively dismissing her, and Steph walked out of the door.

She half expected - half  _ wanted _ \- him to come after her, but she was relieved when he didn’t. She felt like she’d gotten off lightly, although his apparent lack of interest wounded her pride, but she was lucky he hadn’t flown off the handle or burst into tears.

The whole thing felt unfinished, somehow, a raw edge that still bled, but she felt free as she burst through the outer door and into the mild October air. She’d miss him to some extent, and the companionship she’d built up with Marguerite and Zoe, but it was for the best.

The world was waiting for her, and she couldn’t spend the rest of her life cooped up in the barn with Lucas no matter how good the sex had been.

 

The following day, she was at work when her cellphone rang. She excused herself to answer it.

“Steph?”

“Zoe!”

Steph felt a stab of guilt hearing Zoe’s voice. She’d never said goodbye yesterday and had just ducked out, fleeing while she still had the courage.

“How are you, Zoe? Are you good?”

“I’m fine, Steph. It ain’t me I’m callin’ about though. Listen, has somethin’ happened between you an’ Lucas? Y’all had an argument or somethin’?”

“We...I finished it,” said Steph. “I just couldn’t see us going anywhere.”

“Ouch! Well, can’t say I blame you. He ain’t the easiest person to be around.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about it, but I’ve been trying to keep my mind off it. Why? What did Lucas say?”

“He ain’t said nothin’. He has smashed up his workroom an’ everythin’ in it, though….”

“Really?”

Steph was honestly surprised.

“He gave me the impression he didn't really care….”

“Yeah, he would. That’s how he is. He cares, though, believe me.”

“Oh shit. Look, do you want me to come around and talk to him?”

“No! God no. Best to do what you did, Steph. Talkin’ to him ain’t gonna help, trust me. He’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on him. Besides, there’s a storm comin’. We’re gonna be shut off from town for a few days at least once it hits. I’ll call you next week, let you know how he is. And don’t feel bad. You was good to him - we all know that. Catch you later.”

 

The storm was worse than she'd expected, and flooded the roads between town and the Baker house as Zoe had predicted.

Steph’s apartment was lucky enough to remain undamaged, but the rest of the houses nearby weren’t so lucky. The phone lines went down for a couple of days while the storm raged, and Steph remained inside, listening to the wind whistle and the rain pelt the building.

She wondered how the Bakers were getting on: Jack had been talking about reinforcing the windows and shoring up the roof in preparation the last time she’d seen him, but the Baker mansion was badly dilapidated and she wondered what good his precautions would ultimately achieve.

The storm passed, but left behind plenty of damaged properties and closed businesses in its wake. All around Dulvey, workers could be seen trying to put the place to rights. Steph walked among the organised chaos to the stores that were open to get supplies and hoped, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Lucas’s barn had survived the onslaught. The barn was his sanctuary, and she didn’t know how he’d cope if it was destroyed. It hurt her heart to imagine him sitting in the wreckage, all alone, without her in her usual place on the battered old couch.

She waited until the following week and life was back to some kind of normal routine before risking phoning Zoe to check up on her home situation. The other woman hadn't contacted her, and Steph couldn't wait any longer. She would ask about the house, but it would be Lucas she would really be inquiring about. The news that he had wrecked his workshop after she’d split with him had come as a shock, and reinforced the guilt she’d been feeling.

There was no dial tone when she tried to call Zoe, and she assumed that out in the sticks as they were the telephone company wouldn’t see them as a priority. It took all her courage to call Lucas’s cell phone, and she was almost relieved when she was met with a recorded message. So she waited another couple of days before calling the landline again.

This time, the phone was answered, but when she greeted whoever was on the other end of the line there was no reply - just the suggestion of breathing, quick and light like a child’s.

“Lucas? Is that you? Zoe? Can you hear me? It’s Steph.”

The silence drew out, just that faint, almost-not-there sound, and as she was about to hang up a little girl’s voice spoke to her, sweet and clear but somehow sinister, like a child in a horror movie.

“They’re mine now,” said the voice, then there was the silence of an empty line.

Steph tried to call back during the course of the next few days, but there was never any reply.

 

The weekend came, and with it a sense of emptiness. Unsatisfying as her relationship with Lucas had been, Steph still felt a loss at its absence. She’d been going to Lucas’s house for months, and now it was over she didn’t know what to do with her time.

The days stretched out in a yawning void.

Many of her acquaintances had shunned her when they’d discovered she was seeing Lucas  so she didn’t have anyone to spend time with, and after slumping around her apartment for most of the day, picking up books and putting them down, she had had enough.

If Lucas’s family wouldn’t answer the phone, she would go visit them.

 

It was a fairly long walk down the dirt road to the Baker house. The flood waters had receded, leaving muddy puddles overflowing the potholes, and she avoided them carefully. They had the look of the ones Doctor Foster had stepped into on the way to Gloucester, and she had no desire to turn up at Lucas’s house with dirty water staining her up to her middle.

She thought about how she would look - wet dress clinging to her legs - and that in turn made her think of Lucas peeling it off her, which then made her think of all the times they’d spent in the barn. It sent a pleasurable little shiver up her spine.

She’d been lonely, she realised, and as she walked pondered whether going to see Lucas was a good idea. If he forgave her, if he wanted to try again, starved of affection as she was she could all too easily see herself succumbing to his attentions, and then she’d be right back where she had started: Getting fucked within an inch of her life when the mood took him then ignored the rest of the time.

She thought about turning round, but she had come so far, and even as she considered it her feet carried her onwards until the gothic roof of the mansion was in sight.

 

The front door was open, which surprised her.

Round here, Jack had always bragged, people didn’t need to lock their doors, but still the Bakers rarely used their front door and the last time Lucas had opened it, it had creaked like the door of a dungeon, its damp-swollen wood jamming the frame as he forced it wide.

She climbed the steps to the pillared porch, thinking for the umpteetnth time how the house must have looked in its heyday, and even though the door was ajar she knocked anyway out of politeness.

She waited for a response, and when none came, she called out, taking care to shout everyone’s name so Lucas wouldn’t know it was him she’d come to see.

She was concerned: The house had some obviously boarded up windows, but aside from that it didn’t look too badly damaged, and she couldn’t imagine the family abandoning it for a few broken windows when they’d lived in the partial ruins for so long.

The place had the air of somewhere that had been empty for a long time, and there was even black mold clinging to the walls. The atmosphere of neglect was so strong it reminded her of ghost stories she'd read in her teens in which travellers had stayed the night in a farmhouse, even talking to the occupants, only to wake in the morning and discover the house in ruins, the residents long dead. 

Had Lucas ever existed? she wondered. Had she ever really done all those dirty and wonderful things with him? She was starting to doubt her sanity.

She was in the decrepit splendour of the main hall when she heard the front door slam. It gave her a start, nearly jolting her from her shoes, and for a second she thought she might just keel over.

“Hello?” she called, her voice nearly inaudible to her under the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

She made her way on wobbly legs to the hallway, stumbling through the double doors.

There was a figure stood in the meagre light that filtered through the porch windows: Thin and hooded, with a subdued icy gleam peeping out from the shadowed depths.

“Lucas? Oh, thank God! What's going on here? Why haven't you been answering the phones?”

Lucas didn't answer right away, but when he did he ignored her questions.

“So. Y’all came runnin’ back, huh? What's the matter - miss my dick that much?”

His words gave her an unpleasant lurch in her stomach, but they made her exasperated too.

“Lucas, just because I finished with you, it doesn't mean I don't care about you any more! I was worried.”

“Worried?”

He laughed, but there was no humour in it.

“Too late to be worried. The worst has already happened, Steph, an’ ain't nothin’ you can do about it.”

“What’s happened though?” demanded Steph. “Tell me!”

He shook his head slowly, and his refusal to tell her caused all sorts of images to crop up in her head. She pictured Jack, Marguerite and Zoe, dead for days, lifeless bodies propped up in chairs around the dinner table while flies crawled over their bloodied faces.

“Lucas, you're scaring me,” she told him, keeping her voice as calm and reasonable as possible.

“You should be scared,” said Lucas, his voice dull. “The world's a terrible place, Stephanie, an’ bad things happen to good people all the time. Take me, for example: Had a girlfriend one time. Thought the world o’ her. Didn't stop her from leavin’ me though. What d’ya think o’ that, Steph?”

His words cut her, but they weren't fair, and she bit down the angry retort that wanted to bubble up. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried to speak in the same even tone she'd used before.

“I think she was more upset about it than you thought,” she said. “And that she wanted to actually feel like she had a boyfriend, not just someone to fuck occasionally.”

He seemed confused.

“What you sayin’?” he asked.

“I’m saying I know it wasn’t your fault, but that I couldn’t carry on like that. Being ignored and neglected.”

Lucas hung his head, the edge of his hood obscuring his face.

“Always fuck things up,” he said. “Never know how to act. Steph, you gotta gimme another chance. Feels like I'm stuck at the bottom o’ a well with the water risin’ an’ no way out. I'm drownin’ all alone, Steph, an’ nobody even knows I'm missin’. I feel  _ lost _ .”

He was walking towards her now, slowly like he was giving her a chance to pull back. The same way he had done the first time he'd kissed her.

She knew she should leave, but being here with him now she felt the pull of him too strongly. 

Maybe he could change, she thought dreamily. Maybe now she'd alerted him to the problem he could fix it on his workbench, open it up and find the problem, put it right...

He stood in front of her, close enough to touch.

“I missed you,” he said, and his voice was so full of unfamiliar pain she felt weak under the pressure of it.

“Missed your voice. Missed your smell,” he went on

He was leaning in to her, breathing deep as though he wanted to inhale her, the tip of his nose tracing a tickly line up her cheek.

“Missed the taste o’ you,” he told her, tilting his head to place a careful kiss on the tender skin under her ear.

He had several days worth of stubble on his jaw, and it tickled her in a delicious way, waking her dormant nerve endings, leaving a tingle where it touched. She sighed.

“I missed you too,” she said quietly. “But -”

‘I missed your pussy,’ he said, and pressed his hand into her crotch, finding the crease between her thighs and dragging his fingertips along it.

He kissed her neck, trailing his tongue against the pulsing vein, closing his mouth onto the flesh and sucking gently. When had he ever been this seductive? she wondered, clutching onto his shoulders for support as his fingertips worked their spell. When did he learn how to tease like this?

She was close to giving in, surrendering to his mournful words and the desire to just open her legs and let him fuck her in the hallway like she’d never been away, but something wasn't right and she couldn’t fight her way through the fog of lust long enough to figure out what it was.

“Lucas, wait…” she murmured.

It was hard to think with him like this, and God she had missed him - this part of him, anyway. But something nagged at the back of her mind, a little burrowing insect of worry.

He smelled bad, she realised. Though he'd always looked slightly dishevelled with his worn clothes and his unevenly cut hair, he'd always been clean, but now she could smell a strong odour of stale sweat on him and his breath stank like something rotten.

That in itself wouldn't have set alarm bells off - if he was depressed by their break up, it would be natural to neglect his personal hygiene - but something else was off about him too and it unnerved her. His words were too careful, like he was reading a script

“Where are your parents?” she asked. “Where's Zoe?”

“They're upstairs,” he said. “Don't worry about them.”

He was fumbling beneath her skirt now, trying to prise her thighs apart, but she squeezed them shut determinedly.

“There was a little girl who answered the phone the other day,” she asked. “Who was she, Lucas?”

He hesitated, his mouth still for a second.

“My little sister. Eveline,” he said, but he sounded puzzled, as though asking himself if that was right.

“You never told me about a little sister….”

He made a frustrated sound.

“She's always been here,” he said.

“No she hasn't.”

She was putting her hands up now, trying to push him away, but she may as well have tried to push away the wall she now realised he had her pinned against.

“Lucas, stop.”

“Afterwards, you can come up an’ meet her,” he said. “You’ll like her.”

His knee was between hers, and he pushed her legs apart with an impatient thrust. The back of her head thudded against the wall as he squashed himself against her. Steph braced her forearms against him and pushed with more force.

“Hey, c’mon now!” he protested. “Don’t be like that. You know you wanna. I can smell it on ya.”

“I can’t. Lucas,” she said. “I have to go!”

He snorted, huffing hot breath against her neck.

“You always gotta go,” he said. “You should stay. Eveline wants you to.”

She could feel his mouth opening against her throat, teeth grazing her. He was going to bite her, she knew it, and not a playful love bite: He was going to take a chunk out of her.

“Stop!”

She put all her panicked strength into her push and Lucas went reeling backwards, his teeth snapping shut on nothing. He made a noise that sounded like a growl and she caught a glint of teeth under the shadow of his hood.

“What the  _ fuck _ ….?” he spat. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m leaving!” she said. “Don’t stop me Lucas.”

He made a grab for her hair and she ducked to the side, feeling the air whistle past her face.

She was off balance, but used it to her advantage, staggering sideways out of his reach. He clutched at the air where she had been, snatching  with dirty fingernails.

“You can’t leave!” he snapped. “She wants you to stay.”

The “she” he was referring to had to be this girl Eveline, but Steph had no idea who she was or why she was held in such esteem. It didn't matter, though - Lucas has apparently lost his mind and she wasn't sticking around to work out the fine details.

She ran for the door, grabbing at the handle and turning it. It opened inwards, but like before it jammed, and the back step she had to make to yank on it delivered her straight into Lucas’s arms.

He wrapped them around her, pinning her own arms to her sides, and she could feel the grind of his hard-on against her ass.

“Why you gotta be so difficult?” he asked her. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

His voice soft now and devoid of the malice he'd displayed before. He was switching moods faster than Steph could keep track of, and his new tone did nothing to soothe her.

“Why won't you just give in?” he continued. “It ain't so bad. I can make it feel goooood, Steph. I can make it feel like the best fuck we ever had. You stay,  an’ I'll be the one to do it. I promise. I'll make her let me.”

“Lucas, I don't know what you're talking about, but please let me go. If you love me….”

She was proud that her voice betrayed none of her stress, though he surely had to feel how the burst of adrenaline was making her tremble. She had never been more terrified in her life, and she knew that the wrong words might make him snap. And who knew what he would do to her….

Luckily, she seemed to have chosen the right ones.

He sagged against her, a sound like a sob coming from his throat, and squeezed her tighter - but not, she sensed, to stop her from leaving. He was desperate, hanging onto her like she was a rope dangled into the well he talked about and she would be able to drag him out. He whispered now, directly in her ear.

“It’s like hell here and she won’t let us go,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But she’s in my head. She keeps makin’ me think things I don’t wanna think. Get help, Steph. Go, while I’m still in my right mind.”

Her arms sprang free as he released her, and he leaned past her to wrench open the door. She had barely gathered her thoughts before he was pushing her through with fierce urgency, and far away in another part of the house she heard footsteps pounding, a stampede coming towards them.

“Go!” he said again, and she caught a glimpse of his face, a narrow slice of terror peering through the gap in the door before he slammed it closed behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After seeing what Lucas has become, Steph is in a turmoil and doesn't know what to do. Luckily, she has a friendly shoulder to cry on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished it!  
> There is "French" in this - had some help from my Canadian friends but if there are any mistakes they are all mine. Just ignore any mistakes. In fact, for the purposes of this fic, it's best if you suspend any disbelief you might have and just go with it. Okay? Thank you.

She didn’t stop to ponder what had just happened, but turned and ran down the driveway, nearly tripping in her haste. There were raised voices within the house now - Jack’s bellowing in rage, Marguerite’s screeching in a tone she’d never heard the woman use before. Lucas was yelling back, begging high and frightened, and then there were screams and muffled thuds.

She risked a glance over her shoulder in time to see the door begin to open again, only to slam shut directly after. More screaming echoed through the swamps, sending birds whisking into the air in densely packed clouds.

 

Steph didn’t know what to do. She had run until her breath scorched her throat and pain spiked into her chest, only slowing when she saw the lights of town growing brighter. She was shaking, from exertion and her fright, and her head whirled with the jumbled thoughts waltzing crazily through it.

Get help, he had said. But what could she do?

She staggered down the street, feet steering her towards her home, but she suspected that even shut away behind locked doors she would still be in fear for her life.

She hung there, in the middle of the street, not knowing which way to turn.

The police _,_ she thought. She had to tell the police.

She changed direction, and made her way downtown.

 

The man she spoke to listened sympathetically enough, but there was doubt behind his eyes. Steph had tried to recount the events calmly and rationally, refusing to let hysteria get her in its grasp, but still he was looking at her like she was overreacting, and the knowledge made her furious.

“I know how it sounds,” she said. “But I’m serious. If I hadn’t got out of there, I don’t know what would have happened.”

The officer nodded slowly. He had a long moustache that curled around the corners of his mouth, and for some reason he reminded her of a sad dog.

“Well, miss. I gotta say I can kinda imagine that boy flyin’ off the handle like that. He always was a strange one. But Marguerite? Screeching like a harpy? Why, she’s the gentlest woman you could ever hope to meet! An’ I’ve known Jack Baker since I was just a knee baby.... Those nice folks wouldn’t o’ harmed you, child. Surely you know that?”

“Maybe not before,” she said, as steadily as she could. “But something has happened there, officer. Something bad. And I don’t think they’re themselves any more.”

She tried to quash the resentment she was feeling at the man’s judgement of Lucas, but it was hard. It was based on hearsay and rumour, and had no place in the law as far as she was concerned.

“Please - just go there at least,” she pleaded. “Even if I’m wrong about Mr and Mrs Baker, something is very wrong with Lucas and they might need help.”

There his head went again - up and down, up and down. Nod, nod, nod. He was trying to look understanding, and failing. He was humouring her.

“Alright. Okay,” he said. “I’ll go up there an’ check it out - put your mind at rest, at least. But I suggest you head on home, Miss. Get some rest. Ain’t nothin’ more y’all can do. Leave your number behind the desk, an’ I’ll get back to you in the mornin’.”

 

Steph went home. As condescending as the man was, he was right - there was nothing more she could do.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Lucas, though, as she locked her door and pulled the chain across. What had gone on in that house since she’d last seen him? If it were just him, she might have assumed that their break-up had unhinged him, but hearing Jack and Marguerite yelling like that, and hearing the obvious violence unfolding behind the door - she had no explanation for that.

Maybe it was some illness, she thought. Some kind of fever, messing with their minds. Or carbon monoxide poisoning - that could make people crazy and paranoid.

She went to bed, but didn't get to sleep for a long time.

 

She thought she was dreaming the knocking noise, the soft _tap-tap-tap_ insinuating itself into her sleeping mind, becoming part of her dreamworld.

She sat up in the dimness of her bedroom, the deep unease caused by her dream and the persistent knocking lingering round her like a mist.

There was a little light from outside seeping through her curtains, and she stared at the shadow cast across her bed: A vague, long oval that shifted, grew and receded.

_Tap-tap-tap._

There was someone knocking on her window, and she knew who it was.

Lucas had never come to her apartment: She suspected other people's spaces made him uncomfortable, and of course it held the danger of her asking him to stay overnight. It would have meant sleeping in the same bed, and that kind of physical intimacy would have been abhorrent to him.

He knew where she lived, though. He had left the gift of the metal rose at her door in his attempt to woo her.

Steph got out of bed and opened the curtains.

The dread that had followed her from the Baker house was so strong at that moment she could almost taste it - a tinny flavour that stuck in her throat - and the sight of Lucas's shrouded head on the other side of the glass did nothing to dispel it.

He held up his open hands, seeing her fear, showing her that they were empty and that he meant no harm, and despite her better judgement she opened her window a crack.

She was on edge, ready to slam it shut at a second's notice, but he made no move to climb in or open it further. In fact, he took a step back, giving her space, reassuring her.

He started to speak immediately, giving her no chance to ask any questions.

“I'm sorry, Steph,” he said. “Sorry I scared you. But she's in my head some o’ the time, an’ when she is she makes me feel weird. She got my parents worse than she got me, but Zoe she ain't hardly got at all. Steph, you gotta move away. She got her sights on you. An’ the others might not know where you live, but I do, an’ she can make me tell eventually.”

Steph didn't waste time asking who “she” was. This Eveline girl seemed to be the embodiment of his delusion, and she assumed she was a symbol of his mental state right now: Threatening, controlling and accentuating his loneliness.

“There was a ship, you see. Got grounded in the swamp durin’ the storm. I had to get outta the house - my workroom was all smashed to shit and I couldn't even stand to look at the couch where we always sat. Felt like I would look around and you'd be there, but you never were. So I went for a walk. Far out. An’ I found the Annabelle. She was on that boat. Didn't know it at the time. Told my dad an’ he went out an’ found her an’ Mia. An’ that's when it started.”

He lowered his head, putting his hands over his face.

“Wish I never went out there. Wish I never seen that boat. The things she's done, Steph….how she's made us act….it's a fuckin’ nightmare an’ I keep waitin’ to wake up, but I can't. So you should go. Leave town, get away from here. Cuz one o’ these nights I won't be able to help myself an’ I'll come get you. Then you'll be hers too.”

He turned and rushed away with his usual slumped gait, shoulders hunched like he was cold. He moved fast, faster than she'd ever seen him go before, and within seconds she could no longer see him.

Unsettled, she shut her window and climbed back into bed.

 

The officer she'd spoken to the previous evening called her while she was at work the next day.

She'd had only part of her mind on the job: The other part had been considering Lucas’s suggestion of leaving, and when she answered her phone she was hoping against hope it would be good news. She didn't want to leave her job and her apartment to go elsewhere.

_“Well, I got good news an’ bad news, Miss,” said the officer. “Went up to the Baker house to check out your story, an’ it seems they've upped an’ left. Gave the place a good goin’ over, looked everywhere. A lot of their belongings were gone, electricity shut off. Just a lot o’ junk lyin’ around. House was in a dreadful state. Ain't surprised they've moved on, to be honest. Place must cost a small fortune to run, an’ with all the repairs needed…..I reckon they just called it quits. They're long gone, honey.”_

“But...they were there last night. At least, Lucas was.”

_“Maybe he came back to pick some stuff up. There were some signs of, uh, vandalism in the hallway. Looks like he smashed the hell outta the place. Broken glass an’ all lyin’ around, furniture on its side. A bit o’ blood on the floorboards, too. Guess he cut himself up while he was wreckin’ the place.”_

“But surely that's a cause for concern?” said Steph. “Blood. Signs of a struggle.”

_“Hold your horses, Miss! Are you tryna tell me how to do my job?”_

“No! But it can't be that simple.”

_“Well, if you wanna file a missin’ person report, you should wait 48 hours then -”_

Steph cut him off. It was no use. Nobody cared about Lucas Baker, and that was the sad truth of it.

 

Steph had never known Eulalie’s last name, nor indeed anything about her: All she knew was that the old woman with the leathery skin the colour of roasted coffee beans could be considered a friend, and she had a talent for making Steph feel better.

Steph had begun visiting her not long after she'd moved to Dulvey, and had tried to keep up habit at least once a week. Eulalie was housebound, stuck forever in her old armchair with afghans piled up on her knees, and although she lived alone, her house was always spotlessly kept, her pantry full of food, her front yard neatly clipped and tended to.

When Steph had asked her who came in to care for her, Eulalie had laughed.

“My kids,” she said. “Got seven of them. Plus, I got plenty of folks I've helped out over the years. Round here, we remember who's done us favours, and we make sure to pay them back.”

Steph wasn't a firm believer that age naturally imparted wisdom - she'd met too many bigoted older people - but in Eulalie’s case the idea seemed well founded. The woman had been married three times, having outlived all her husbands, and had travelled the world in her time.  She had a story for every occasion, advice for every situation, and Steph loved to sit and listen to her talk.

She knew the moment Steph entered that there was something wrong.

“Child? What ails you? You look like you been et by a wolf and shit off a cliff!”

“I've been having trouble sleeping,” she confessed. “Things on my mind.”

“Well, tell me about them then,” said Eulalie. “Don't reckon myself that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, but it does help to talk it out sometimes. Make some tea, honey.”

Steph made tea and sat at the old woman's feet. She was struggling to sort out her problems in her head, get them in some kind of order, and in the end she started with Lucas and that day she saw him coming out of the hardware store.

Eulalie sat and listened. She knew everyone in Dulvey to some extent, and she nodded sagely when Steph told her about Lucas’s inability to show affection.

She frowned when Steph told her how he'd acted when she'd gone to see him, and shook her head in frustration when Steph told her about the attitude of the local police.

When she'd finished, Eulalie was silent for a while, processing everything.

“Well,” she said finally. “That asshole Officer Jackson is the most mule-headed boy I ever knew. Always was that way. But I can't believe he’s so short sighted he can't see something’s up.”

“So you believe me?” said Steph.

“Oh, yes honey. I always know when someone's telling the truth. There's something going on with the Bakers and I don't like it one bit.”

She pondered for a moment, sipping her tea.

“So, are you considering leaving town like your boy said? Cuz that would be a crying shame.”

“I've thought about nothing else,” admitted Steph. “I've don't want to go, but I don't want to live in fear. Do you think I'm just being paranoid?”

“Oh, no! You got good reason to be worried. I ain't like everyone else round here, believing that Baker boy is some kind of murderer or something -”

“What? People really believe that?” asked Steph.

She'd heard a lot of gossip, but nothing pertaining to that.

“Oh, Uh-huh. People round here can be mighty ignorant. You see there used to be a boy called Oliver lived not far away, and he upped and disappeared one day. They sent out search parties looking for him, dragged the swamp water, but didn't find a thing. That boy was gone. There were some people out there thought that Lucas had something to do with it. But I weren't one of them. Lucas was just a kid himself, and even though he might have been a tad off after his accident, wouldn't make him a killer. I got my own suspicions about what happened to Oliver. Nobody else knows this but me, but Oliver’s father was a secret drinker, and had a nasty temper on him when he had some liquor inside him. Before Oliver went missing, the boy’s mother would often come to me with black eyes and bruises, looking for some comfort. I told her to leave him, but she never did. She stopped coming to see me after Oliver was gone. Reckon she knew I can see the truth in people, and didn't want to give nothing away. Now, I ain't saying the father did it, but what kind of people would look at a weak little boy and make up their minds that he was involved first, instead of turning their eyes to an adult? Small town minds, honey. Suspicious and superstitious.”

She drained the dregs of her tea and peered into her cup.

“Weren't nothing wrong with Lucas, apart from what you noticed, and I think it was people’s attitudes to him made him like he was. The accident didn't help, of course, but can you imagine being a little kid with an aching head, trying to make sense of your confusion and having people act like it made you wrong, somehow? Poor little mite….”

She sighed, her eyes misting over at the thought of the little boy Lucas had been, and it gave Steph a lump in her throat too.

“Anyway. All that aside, do you believe what Lucas told you about the ship, and the people they found there?”

Steph shrugged.

“I honestly don't know. If it was just Lucas, I'd assume it was a sign of questionable mental health, but I heard Jack and Marguerite, and it made my skin crawl. Is it possible,  though? I mean, how can a little girl affect an entire family?”

“I'd be lying if I said I knew the answer, honey. But there's definitely something going on over there. It's like a black cloud hanging over the house. Can't see through it no matter how I try. Its bad news, child - Nasty business.”

Eulalie had often made references to some kind of second sight, but Steph had usually ignored them. Now, though, with the knowledge that she had, the old woman’s words gave her the shivers.

“You feel guilty,” said Eulalie. “You keep thinking if you hadn't broken up with Lucas he'd be okay. But it's all relative. He might not have the troubles he has now, but we both know he'd be troubled anyway. None of this was your fault. He just got a taste of happiness and realised what he'd been missing. Ain't enough for you to sacrifice your own happiness, just for him. There ain't much I can do for you, child, but what I can do is make sure you get yourself a good night’s sleep. Get you some distance from your problems for a while. Fetch me the chest on the dresser, honey - I got something that might help you.”

Steph got up and retrieved the chest Eulalie wanted. It was made of honey coloured wood that gleamed mellow lying in the subdued light, and Eulalie took it onto her knees. She fumbled around beneath the raised lid for a while, then produced a small muslin bag tied at the top.

“Take this home. Make tea with it, and drink it before you go to bed. It'll give you a chance to rest and heal, and the world always looks better after a decent sleep. You might get some what they call lucid dreams, but don't let them scare you. This stuff is good and it only does good. Now off you go. Need a nap myself.”

 

Steph went home and followed her friend's directions, letting the leaves steep in hot water. The blend gave off a heady scent, flowery and redolent of her grandmother's dresser drawers when she was a child. It gave her comfort just inhaling the aroma and remembering her childhood.

It tasted like it smelled, though with a slightly bitter undertaste that she smothered with honey, and drank the brew sat up in bed scrolling through photos on her phone.

She had no pictures of her and Lucas together, but tucked away in her gallery were a couple of snapshots of him she'd managed to sneak. They weren't particularly flattering, but it still gave her a pang to see him bent over his desk with his tongue protruding with concentration as he worked on something tricky.

She'd taken a photo of the framed picture of his family over the fireplace in the guesthouse too. It depicted a smiling Marguerite in her younger days, looking pretty and contented, Zoe next to her, with Jack sat further along, a very young Lucas tucked comfortably next to him.

Lucas had been cute with his chubby cheeks and thick hair. It had been before the accident, and he looked peaceful there, with none of the disappointment in life his face held now.

 _Poor little mite,_ she thought.

 

When Eulalie had talked about lucid dreams, she hadn't been wrong.

Steph moved through her dreamscape with fascination, an observer in events around her that played out with a sharpness and focus not normally found in dreams.

There were no weird things happening, no twisted dream logic. Just people going about their business. Most of them seemed not to notice Steph, walking past her as if she weren't there, but a few people gave her a sidelong frown, as if she puzzled them.

She had thought she was walking aimlessly, but her feet were steering her without her knowledge and it wasn't long before the rooftop of the Baker house came into view over the tousled canopy of the swamp trees.

She was almost scared, but the golden light of her dreamworld, nearly the same colour as Eulalie’s tea chest, made her feel warm and safe, so she had no fear as she approached.

There was a weird veil around the Baker property: A misty gauze that hung around it like smoke. It didn't smell smokey though, and Steph examined it with interest,  putting out a cautious hand to feel it.

It had no substance, and her hand passed through with no sensation at all, and encouraged by this she stepped through it.

It may have had no physical mass, but going through it was like entering into a different world. The light was strange, an odd sepia hue that reminded her of very old photographs, and it gave her the same feeling of nostalgia that the smell of the tea had.

She wandered up the path towards the house. It was still in a state of disrepair,  but somehow it looked less forlorn than it had. The windows had been repaired, the long grass cut, and a summer haze seemed to hang over it all. Insects hummed sleepily by, slowed by the thick soup of the air.

She was in The Past, she suddenly realised with that weird insight that dreams gave. But how far back? Was she going to be able to stop Lucas going out into the swamp where he found the ship?

Steph started forward excitedly, eager to put things right, but as she rounded the corner of the house she stopped.

She had crossed the back yard from the main house to the barn many times, and knew the area so well she'd worn a path with her feet, but it looked different here - felt different too.

The old trailer that had been left out there was gone, the grass where it should have healthy and green, not dead like it should have been if the trailer had been removed.

The stairs leading up to the barn were open, too, and the smell of fresh hay drifted out over the yard, mixed in with a faint smell of cow shit.

They had kept animals once, Lucas had told her. Not many - just enough to be self-sufficient in eggs and milk and ham. She must be further back than she thought.

The corner between the house and barn had been overgrown in her present, but it was clear in this time period, with a single tree standing there.

The tree….

Steph walked over and stood next to it. It was dead or dying, she thought, like Marguerite had said, and if it hadn't already done so it would soon badly injure the little boy who would climb it.

Steph jumped as the back door banged open, grabbing a hold of the tree’s dry bark. There was a child on the veranda - a small boy with dimpled cheeks and thick hair in a pageboy cut that she knew his mother had done. His eyes were blue, the colour of the sky on a cold day, and they swept the yard with bright enjoyment before lighting on the tree, and his face broke into a grin.

Steph felt sick. She was going to see the moment Lucas had been damaged beyond repair, see him fall and bleed. She looked down and spotted the rock at the foot of the tree, almost hidden by the grass around it, and aimed a kick at it in desperation.

Her kick had no impact, no force behind it, and she felt helpless as the child approached. Why would her dream do this to her? she wondered. Why be forced to watch the moment that changed Lucas's life and be unable to do anything about it?

She felt tears come to her eyes.

“Don't do it Lucas!” she yelled. “Don't climb the tree!”

The boy stopped suddenly, a few feet away from where Steph stood. His eyes were narrowed and squinted, and he stood as if uncertain whether to proceed.

He wasn't looking at her, not really, but his head was tilted to the side, his eyebrows drawn down in puzzlement.

Steph watched as he frowned, and stretched out a small hand in her direction.

Could he see her? How was that possible? She was a spectator to the past, a dream person...yet he was walking slowly towards her waving his hand about as though he was in a dark room and couldn’t see where he was going.

She moved then, confused about what was happening, and the little boy in front of her jumped back with a yelp, eyes widening and mouth falling open. He gave a high pitched scream as he staggered backwards, and a window flew open in the side of the building.

“Lucas, _cher_? What’s wrong? Did you hurt yourself?”

It was Marguerite, frowning as Lucas dashed headlong back into the building, tripping over his feet in his haste to get away.

“Momma I saw a haint by the ol’ tree!” jabbered little Lucas as he stumbled though the back door.

Haint….wasn’t that the word for a ghost?

Steph smiled despite herself. Whatever had just happened, her dream-self had just averted disaster, even if she had scared a little boy in the process.

Poor Lucas, she thought to herself. If only she had really been there when he’d had his accident…

All around her, the world became pale and faded, colour seeping from it and becoming _thin_ somehow. It was probably time to wake up, she decided. Time to leave The Past and start considering her Future.

She didn’t want to go, in all honesty. She may have been a ghost here, but she was safe, and it was pleasant to hang around the Baker family undetected. Her waking life was full of problems she didn’t want to face.

But she could hear the chimes of her alarm somewhere far off in the distance, like church bells ringing far off, and with a sigh she started walking towards them.

Eulalie had been right about the healing properties of her tea. When Steph woke up she was still aware of her situation but everything seemed less urgent, somehow.

So she had to leave Dulvey. It was sad, but not the end of the world. She’d lost friends in dating Lucas anyway, and there was really nothing keeping her here any longer.

She got dressed and set off for work, strolling in the mild October morning with a fresh spring in her step. She would work through her morning, then scour the wanted ads on her phone for places to live and jobs to apply for. New Orleans would be a lovely place to live, she thought.

 

Amy had spotted her meeting up with Lucas a few months back and ever since then she'd been standoffish and distant, as though speaking to Steph would result in some kind of contact humiliation she would be unable to recover from, but this morning she was friendly and receptive.

It was a surprise for Steph, and Amy chatted away to her as though nothing had ever been amiss, but she didn’t mention Lucas and Steph began to feel resentful. Even though it was over, she could at least acknowledge him.

She ground her teeth and let Amy talk at her, though a pulse pounded in her temples, and Amy seemed to notice that something was wrong.

“You okay, Steph?” she asked. “Look a little peaky. You gettin” sick?”

“Just tired,” lied Steph. “Got a lot of things on my mind at the moment and I haven’t been sleeping.”

“Why don’t you go on home, honey?” suggested Amy. “I’ll cover for you. Get you some rest.”

Steph considered it. She needed the money, but right now she needed to get out of there more. Amy was suffocating her with her refusal to discuss the elephant in the room, and Steph’s own confusion wasn’t helping.

“Maybe I will….” she said.

She could start her search, she thought. Start looking through the classifieds.

She was gathering her stuff together before she’d even made a conscious decision and halfway through the door with her purse swinging from her hand.

 

Steph walked with her head down, the pure feeling she'd woken up with ebbing away. Amy had ruined it and as much as she wanted hang onto to it, it wasn't working. She wanted to cry.

Such was her involvement that she registered the other person's presence too late, and there was a split second of awareness before she walked headlong into them.

The bridge of her nose took first impact, bringing water to her eyes, and she was blinded as she reeled backwards mumbling apologies even as her head seemed to explode.

“Aw, shit!” said the other person, a mere blur through the veil of her tears. “Are you okay?”

She muttered some demurral, cradling her sore nose in her cupped hand. There was no blood that she could feel, but she almost wished there was: It would have been a distraction from her embarrassment at the very least.

“You sure took a whack,” continued the other person - a male voice that sounded familiar. “I'm sorry. Was my fault - saw you comin’ an’ I should o’ moved aside, but I didn't really think you'd walk right into me….”

Steph blinked the water from her eyes and sniffed. Her lower lip had taken a blow too and it felt swollen and pouty, but she tried to smile.

“No, it was my fault….” she began, but trailed off as her vision cleared.

It was Lucas - large as life standing right there on the sidewalk in front of her, those familiar blue eyes cutting right through her soul, and she gasped in shock, taking an instinctive step backwards.

He looked concerned, which was almost hilarious under the circumstances, and she fought the urge to turn and run away. There were people all around, she reminded herself, and whereas before she had blushed to think that they had witnessed her humiliation, now she was grateful for their presence.

“Don't look broken,” Lucas was saying. “But I ain't no doctor. You should probably get it checked out.”

“Thank you for your concern,” she said stiffly.

She wanted to add something cutting under the circumstances, but tamped down that instinct. The less she said the better, and his very proximity was stealing the strength from her limbs, making her weak and trembly.

He gave her a cautious grin.

“Should probably keep your chin up,” he said. “Stop you walkin’ into people. Not that I minded, o’ course. Ain't every day a beautiful woman nearly knocks me off my feet!”

Steph’s mouth dropped open at the brazenness of his statement, and she was about to respond with something snappy when she stopped and looked at him properly.

He looked….different. Not just different from the last time she'd seen him, but different to how he looked the entire time she'd known him.

He stood upright, for starters, the familiar slump of his shoulders lifted, the defensive curve of his spine straightened. His hands were thrust casually into the pockets of his pants instead of bunched in the pockets of a hoodie, and it was remarkable how this small detail changed his entire demeanour, making him look relaxed and at ease.

He didn't even wear a hoodie, she realised, something which was totally out of character for him. He had a baggy sweater instead that he almost looked lost in, and it had no hood to hide beneath.

And then there were the piercings that had apparently just grown there overnight. His left earlobe bore a slim silver hoop, and he had a daith piercing in the cartilage inside.

A thicker, curved horseshoe band looped through his eyebrow, and an almost identical one wound through the corner of his bottom lip.

Steph stood and stared, completely thrown by his appearance, and he frowned beneath the weight of her scrutiny.

“You okay?” he asked. “You look like you seen a ghost or somethin’....”

A glimmer of silver sparked against the soft interior of her mouth. His tongue was pierced, holy shit…..

Steph felt her mind shift lazily, throwing her off balance, and she found herself swaying on the sidewalk as if she might just keel over.

What were the chances? she wondered. What were the chances of him getting all those different piercings over a matter of two days?

They didn't look fresh, either. No redness, no swelling, no blood. They looked healed, like they'd been in situ for years, perhaps.

He was saying something, but his voice sounded far away and muffled like she was hearing him underwater, and she experienced a brief flicker in her eyesight, a fleeting shadow passing in front of her.

She was going to complete her humiliation by fainting, she realised, but all at once it didn't matter if she collapsed in the street in front of everyone.

Because she had made a difference.

If she needed any convincing that this was a different Lucas from the one she'd run from a couple of days before, it was the moment he grabbed her to stop her from falling.

His hands were out of his pockets to take hold of her, gripping her above the elbows without hesitation, and he leaned close to her in evident concern.

“Shit, lady! Don't die on me!” he begged, and Steph heard herself laugh even as she nearly swooned.

The cautious smile was back on his face again. He didn't understand her mirth but he was eager to share the joke with her and he waited expectantly for her to elaborate.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and the world snapped back into place around her. “I just….it struck me as funny.”

“That's okay,” he said. “Nearly broke your face but made you laugh. That’s some kinda consolation I guess. You sure you're okay though? Looked like you was about to pass right out.”

“No, I'm okay. Just a little shaky.”

“Well, lemme at least by you a coffee? To make up for it?”

He was looking at her hopefully, still holding onto her arms, not quite convinced she wouldn't topple the minute he let go, and part of her wanted to do just that, just so she had enough excuse to fall against him. His thumbs were digging into her without him realising - not hurting but intimate - and he was sending little shocks through her where he made contact, familiar yet foreign at the same time.

He was Lucas but not Lucas. She was a stranger to him - she'd never met this version - but she felt like she knew him all the same.

He was the man she'd fucked in a dusty barn, the man who had disappointed her to the extent that she'd left him, the man who had made her terrified for her life just days ago. And yet he wasn't.

Who knew what this man had done, who he'd been?

He'd felt the sun on his skin, this one - he hadn't hidden away in doors. And he wasn't afraid to lay hands on her - hands that she suddenly noticed had tattoos on them, creeping out from under the cuffs of his sweater.

He was still waiting for her reply to his offer and Steph smiled at him.

“I'd love a coffee,” she told him. “Thank you.”

 

It was weird introducing herself, like they'd never met before. Just as weird as hearing his name and pretending she didn't know it.

She was fascinated by him, by the contrast between the twitchy man from before, and if that hadn't convince her the attitudes of people around them would have.

They reacted to him differently, greeting him warmly by name. People liked him. He was popular. Women especially eyed him with interest that he accepted politely but didn't return, and it wasn't her imagination that some of them regarded her with barely concealed envy.

They sat at a table on the sidewalk outside Dulvey’s one cafe. Starbucks hadn't made its way to this small town, and Steph sipped from a china mug with a handle, the October sun touching her face and making her feel blessed.

Lucas had his gaze fixed on her, and it hadn't left her since they'd sat down. She felt self-conscious under his scrutiny, but flattered, and it was difficult not to be openly flirtatious.

“I'm gonna have to apologise in advance,” he told her finally. “I know I keep starin’ at you. Can't seem to help it. Sounds corny I know but I feel like I met you before. Do I know you from somewhere? Look awful familiar….”

He was puzzled, she could tell, and she stifled a smirk behind her curled hand.

“I've lived here since January,” she said. “Maybe you've seen me around?”

Lucas shook his head slowly.

“Naw, that ain't it. I been outta town for nearly a year,” he said. “Only just got back yesterday.”

“Oh? Where have you been?” she asked.

Lucas shrugged, dropping his gaze for the first time. He looked bashful.

“Here an’ there,” he said. “Just around….”

“Is that Lucas Baker bein’ modest I hear?” came a loud voice from nearby.

Steph looked up to see the cafe’s owner, sleeves rolled up as he wiped down tables.

He was shaking his head in apparent disgust.

“Don't you listen to him, honey,” the man bellowed. “That boy has been all over Africa an’ Asia with that invention o’ his!”

“Invention?” Steph turned to Lucas. “Which invention?”

“It's nothin’ -” he began, but was cut off by the loud, aproned man once more.

“Nothin’? Sweet Jesus, would you listen to him? Honey, that boy invented a water container to use in third world countries! You know how many lives he’s savin’ out there? I can't tell ya, cuz I can't count that high! Could be a millionaire now if he patented it, but he won't accept a penny an’ you know why? Cuz he says you can't put a price on people's lives….”

“Okay, Marc! Quit it will ya!”

Lucas’s face was flushed and he looked like he wanted to curl up under the table.

“Don't pay him any attention,” he said as Marc shuffled off, chuckling.

“Oh, but I'm intrigued now,” said Steph. “You have to elaborate.”

Lucas rubbed the back of his head in a way that was awkward but entirely endearing.

“I don't like to….” he said. “Looks like I asked Marc to say that so you'd be all impressed….”

“I don't believe that for a moment,” said Steph. “Go on.”

“Well, it's like this…..Was readin’ somewhere how women in Africa an’ Asia gotta walk on average nearly 4 miles to fetch water, an’ carry 44 pounds or more back on their heads. All that for 20 litres o’ water that still might be dirty and carryin’ diseases. Tried to imagine my Momma or my sister Zoe doin’ that, an’ I just couldn't. O’ course, best solution is to make sure each village got a pump or a well. But what about all them people waitin’ on that? So I thought about how I could make it easier for those women an’ girls who still gotta do that walkin’....”

Steph listened in fascination as he told her how he'd seen water barrels in camping catalogues that could carry 50 litres of water and were designed to roll along the ground on a handle, and how he'd gotten the idea to adapt them with a filter that would clean the water as it was moved. He told her how he'd campaigned first for sponsorship to put them into production, then sponsorship to distribute them all over two continents. He became animated as he spoke, describing how he'd demonstrated the effectiveness, and the looks on women's faces as he'd showed them and their daughters how the barrels could be used, and Steph could hardly believe she was sitting opposite Lucas Baker, the man she'd dumped in a parallel universe because he didn't seem to care about anything.

He trailed off as he realised he'd been talking for a good half hour without stopping, and blushed - actually blushed! - at the raptness of her gaze.

“Sorry…” he muttered. “Guess I talk too much sometimes.”

“Oh, but it was so interesting!” said Steph. “I didn't mind at all. And you didn't make any profit from it?”

“Well, no,” he said. “Ain't right to make profit offa somethin’ like that, y’ask me. Anyways… _c’est tout._ I'm sick o’ the sound o’ my own voice now. Why don't you tell me all about yourself?”

 

They talked until the sun began to set, drinking coffee after coffee and eating the complimentary beignets Marc dropped off at their table every now and then.

This new version of her old boyfriend was enthralling with his tales of travelling and his Cajun accented French dropped into the conversation occasionally. Steph had done some travelling of her own, and he encouraged her to talk about her own experiences, seeming to enjoy tales of her native Italy as much as she enjoyed his stories.

It wasn't until Marc started dragging the tables inside with exaggerated clattering that Lucas looked around and gave her a wry grin.

“Guess we're outstayin’ our welcome,” he said. “We best get outta here ‘fore Marc sets the dogs on us. Listen….I really had fun this afternoon, an’ I was gonna ask you out to dinner, but I got an _envie_ for the crawfish etouffee I know my Momma is makin’ for supper...so I was wonderin’ if you'd join us? My Momma loves to entertain,  an’ she won't mind another mouth to feed…..”

He was watching her face with careful eagerness, and Steph tried to imagine being the sort of person who would turn that invitation down.

She couldn't.

“I'd love to,” she said.

 

It was odd, meeting his family as though she was meeting them for the first time. Only Zoe regarded her with any kind of recognition, having maybe seen her around town, but Marguerite greeted her like the stranger she was, albeit a very welcome one.

Supper was a cheerful affair, and Steph still couldn't believe the contrast between Lucas and the man she'd known. He chatted easily to his family, talking his father about repairing the storm damage, asking Zoe about her friends and her plans, and on top of all this he was constantly touching his parents, squeezing his father’s shoulder as he walked past behind him, putting his hand over his mother’s as he spoke to her in French, demonstrating his affection without restraint.

He didn't touch his phone once the entire meal: It lay forgotten on the counter in the kitchen, its screen blank, as though it wasn't important.

He caught her staring at him more than once, but it was okay because several times she caught him staring at her the same way, and when he offered to walk her home at the end of the night the glance they exchanged was so intimate that Steph was glad she'd worn her nice underwear that day.

It was a warm night and they strolled without hurrying, Lucas taking her hand before they'd even reached the end of the driveway.

“I don't understand this,” he said as they walked, bumping hips companionably. “I don't get how we only only just met but I feel like we already knew each other. Does that sound cringey to you?”

“No, it doesn't,” said Steph. “I feel it too.”

“I keep wonderin’ whether I dreamed about you or somethin’,” he admitted with a bashful laugh. “Feel real comfortable with you though. Feel like me an’ you belong on this path.”

Steph knew he was referring to the walk they were taking together, but she couldn't help smiling nevertheless.

“I think this is the right path,” she said. “I think this is the route we should always have taken.”

He looked at her, curious yet amused.

“Well….yeah. This is the way into town, after all,” he said. “Unless you're gettin’ all deep on me?”

“Maybe I am,” mused Steph. “Does it matter?”

“Not really. I like that you're all mysterious.”

They drifted towards her street, the anticipation building the closer they got. Lucas frowned when they stopped in front of her building, craning his neck upwards.

“Can you tell me somethin’?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“How the fuck did I know you lived here? I ain't never set eyes on you before, but when you stopped here I thought: ‘Oh yeah, this is her place alright.’”

“Maybe it just suits me,” suggested Steph.

He shook his head.

“It ain't that. Steph, do you believe in fate? Destiny?”

“I do, as it happens.”

“Well, thank God,” he said. “Cuz I get the weirdest feelin’ o’ _deja vu_ when I look at you. I ain't never believed soul mates before but….goddam, I swear I feel like there’s some reincarnation shit goin’ down here. If you wanna tell me to fuck off or call me a delusional asshole I wouldn't blame you one bit. But still….”

He turned towards her, his hand flexing in hers with nervous energy.

“I wanna kiss you more than anythin’ I ever wanted in my life, but if you don't want to I'll understand. I mean, who wants to kiss a crazy man?”

Did she have it in her to refuse? She didn't think so. She could feel the tension in his grasp and his eyes were alight with hopeful anticipation. He hadn't mentioned sex, but she knew that was where kissing him would lead her and the promise hung between them, heavy and ripe. Her previous knowledge of how it could be was a constant torment that had been with her since she'd bumped into him,  but fucking this Lucas, the new one, would be like an extravagant threesome, with the memory of the old one looking on voyeuristically.

“You're not crazy,” she told him, and that was as good an affirmative as any.

His tongue crept out to wet his lips and she saw the flash of steel against the softness again. How would that stud in his tongue feel? she wondered, and the thought made her hot, a rosy blush creeping up from her chest to warm her face.

He was leaning in towards her, giving her time to change her mind, and the parallel wasn't lost on her: He'd approached their first kiss like this before, at a cautious crawl, but this time he was more at ease, arms winding around her waist, stepping up to meet her.

She put her arms around his long, somehow elegant neck as he moved in for the kill and when his lips touched hers she felt like she had come full circle at last. The contact sealed the past off with a finality that couldn't be denied, drawing a line underneath it and putting it to rest.

He made a muffled noise in his throat and held her tighter, the stud in his tongue touching the inside of her mouth. She could feel his narrow chest pressing up against hers, and she fancied she could feel his heart beat even through the thick swaddle of his sweater.

A passing car reminded her that they were standing on her front step, and they sprang apart guiltily as the sweeping beams of headlamps flickered across them.

Steph hastily wiped her mouth.

“Do you want to come inside?” she asked.

“God yeah…..” he replied.

He came to stand next to her as Steph fumbled in her purse, the lean tautness of his belly pressed up against her hip. Her hands were unsteady with excitement and she nearly dropped her keys as she tried to get the right one in the lock.

He kissed the side of her neck through her hair as she slipped the key in, taking a deep breath and inhaling her.

“You smell good….” he mumbled as the door swung open.

So did he, though. He smelled like fresh air and musk, the rancid foulness on him the last time she’d saw him a distant, unreliable memory.

They stumbled through the doorway, Steph pushing the door closed behind them with her foot. The hallway was dark and she groped for the light switch, feeling along the wall with Lucas close behind. He pressed his face to the back of her neck, ran his hands up over her belly.

“Leave it,” he said. “It don't matter. I can feel you fine….”

Steph turned, put her back against the wall. It was necessary for support, as her legs were shaking like the rest of her.

“There anythin’ you want me to do?” came his voice from the gloom as his hands pressed against her back. “Anythin’ you really like?”

He sounded breathless, and Steph was glad it was dark so he couldn't see her face going red.

“Could you….could you speak French for me?” she asked.

He chuckled, his breath warm on her throat.

_“Certainement. Si c’est ça que vous voulez.”_

“Oh!”

She sagged against the wall.

_“Tu aimes ça?”_

Mind racing, Steph tried to translate. Her French was limited, but she knew _Aimes_ was like. He was asking if she liked it.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “Don't stop.”

His hands were creeping under her blouse, feeling the goosebumps he'd raised on her skin.

 _“T’es très belle…”_ he said. _“Tu me rends fou.”_

She gave a shudder as the ring in his lip pressed against her collar bone.

“Say somethin’ Italian,” he suggested.

 _“Mi ecciti da morire….”_ said Steph without thinking.

“Sounds great, What does it mean?” he asked.

Steph flushed again.

“Uh...roughly translated…’You turn me on’ or ‘You make me horny’.”

He groaned.

“Fuck…. _Tu mes fais bander!_ ”

Steph scoured her memory for the dregs of French she’d learned, but he took pity on her, translating with a whisper in her ear.

“You make me hard….” he said.

The evidence was there, a stiff bar against her stomach, and Steph leaned back against the wall, tilting her head back to expose her throat. He took the hint and ran his tongue up her throat the way she liked it, and once more she was struck by the surrealness of what was happening. This Lucas had only met her today, but he seemed to instinctively “remember” what she liked. She wondered if the hidden knowledge would surface in other ways….

She got her answer as she felt his hands slide up her thighs beneath the hem of her dress. He was sinking down onto his knees in the hall, kissing a hasty path down the centre of her chest towards her crotch. He nuzzled his face where her thighs met, and she felt the bony ridge of his nose against her pubic mound.

He lifted her skirt and pressed a kiss to the front of her panties, bringing his fingers round to touch between her legs. Steph planted her feet brazenly further apart, pushing her hips away from the wall. He stroked the crease of her pussy lips through her panties.

“So wet…” he murmured. “I wanna taste you. Is that okay? Can I do that?”

Steph laughed.

“Yes!”

Silly question.

He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her panties and pulled them down her legs with an awe she felt was unwarranted but was also welcome. He was feeling his way carefully with his fingertips before they’d even reached her knees, slipping two of them into her with an ease that would have been embarrassing if he weren’t also so excited. She felt him twist his wrist in an all too familiar way and sucked in a sharp breath as his fingers crooked, finding her G-spot like it was a magnet pulling him in.

“ _Est ce que c’est correct? Est ce que c’est bien?_ ” he asked.

She could feel him looking up at her in the darkness, and she groped for the translation. _Correct...bien…_ right and good….She remembered his words back in the barn on the dusty couch, his fingers in her the same way, and he’d asked: _Is that right? Is that good?_

She stifled a small sob for that old Lucas, but she couldn’t be too sad. Not now he was the ways he was meant to be all along.

She curled her palm around the back of his head.

“It’s perfect,” she said truthfully.

He didn’t reply, but that was okay. His tongue was occupied.

She felt the wetness first, the limber tip probing and finding her clit, then the hardness of the metal stud touching her. He didn’t have much hair to grab onto but she still twisted her fingers into the sparse fuzz. He was making the same noise he’d made earlier when he’d been eating the meal his mother had cooked and his free hand was groping up her legs, finding the undercurve of her ass and warming it.

Her panties were snagged around her ankles and she jerked one foot free, opening her legs further. His fingers moved inside her, like he was beckoning her, and he sucked on her clit with the taut ring of his lips. Something was dribbling down the inside of her thigh and she wasn’t sure if it was from her or from him. He flicked at the swollen bud a couple of times with the steel stud.

 _“Tu as un goût si doux,”_ he muttered as if to himself before diving in again.

She pressed her hand down on his head, trapping his face against her pussy without meaning to, but he didn’t complain. She would have moved herself, helped him, but he held her effortlessly in place with those two slender digits. He moved his head, shaking it gently like he was denying something, but his mouth belied the movement, still fastened to her, tongue shifting from side to side.

Steph felt like she should pinch herself, to make sure she wasn't dreaming. None of it seemed real, but it was happening - Lucas kneeling at her feet in worship, the lazy hush of cars passing her apartment, the creaks of the old building settling peacefully around them. There was another world out there, with people in it, but they felt so far away.

“Lucas….I’m going to cum….” she warned him with a hint of panic.

It was happening too fast, she didn’t feel prepared, and there was a tiny part of her that worried her orgasm would break the spell, that she’d wake up alone in her bed with the worry of finding a new job and home still there - or worse yet, she’d find herself on the couch in the barn, Lucas’s back to her on the other side of the room as he fiddled with some gadget he was constructing.

She tried to pull away, to call a halt, but it was too late and she felt the tingle begin, a muted buzz in her belly that grew every second. She clenched her muscles and bit down on her lip, feeling Lucas grind his mouth against her more firmly, the lap of his tongue picking up speed. He had his hand on her ass, clamping her to him, and her knees started to shake as the heat built.

There was a pause, a moment of nothingness, and then she was cumming, the sensation blossoming and blotting out everything. Her hips jerked, and she clung to the wall with a flat hand, using Lucas's head for support. There was a sound she could hear, a high keening coming from seemingly all around her, but as the first spasm ended she realised it was her own voice, lifted in surprised ecstasy. The next pulse hit her, clenching her pussy around the intrusive fingers and there was a gush of something wet flooding down her legs. Her knees crumpled, making her sag, but Lucas wound his arm around her hips, holding her up.

Then it was over, dwindling with diminishing force, leaving her gasping against the wall with little lights flickering in her vision.

She was vaguely aware of Lucas getting to his feet, withdrawing his fingers with a sucking sound, putting his face close to hers.

“You okay?” he asked.

He sounded concerned, and she could smell the sharp tang of her pussy on him.

She gave a breathless laugh, all she could manage in the way of reassurance, and put weak hands on his shoulders.

He held her for a while till the trembling in her legs had subsided, damp face brushing hers. Her pussy juice had soaked into his stubble and, she discovered to her chagrin, the collar of his sweater.

“I got a condom….” he said eventually. “Maybe two. _J’ai envie de toi. On s'envoie en l'air?”_

“I have no idea what you're asking me,” admitted Steph. “But if it's anything to do with wanting sex, then the answer is _oui.”_

“Ha! You see? Don't need to know French to understand the language o’ love,” he told her.

“I had a clue,” said Steph, and felt for it, closing her fingers round the jut of his dick where it tented his jeans.

He hissed, sucking his breath through his teeth.

“You got me,” he said. “Can't deny it.”

Steph felt lazy and happy as she slid away from him, leaving the hollow acoustics of the hall and wandering into the more cosy area of her living room. She used his hard on to lead him, a convenient handle that made him shuffle after her with stilted steps, clutching at her arm.

She regarded the couch for mere seconds before dismissing it: Doing it on the couch would be too reminiscent of the barn and the workshop, the hurriedly snatched encounters that echoed with regret and frustration.

“This way,” she told him, like he had a choice, angling off towards her bedroom.

Her bedroom was her sanctuary, a place to feel at peace, but introducing Lucas changed the energy. The tranquility was disturbed, and it was almost as though the sleepy room lifted it's head to stare at the intruder, this space having never met another person before.

She let go of his dick as she drifted towards her bed, but he followed her as closely as he had when she held it. Her bed, wide enough for her, looked smaller as she stared down at it. The old Lucas would have hated it.

She heard the rustle of clothing behind her and turned to see Lucas struggling out of his sweater, and the action made her realise in a startling epiphany that no matter how many times she'd lain under this body, she had never actually seen it. Lucas before had been shy, perhaps, but he'd never completely undressed: He'd unzipped his hoodie, pulled up his t-shirt, pushed down his jeans, but he'd never been naked in front of her.

This was followed by a second revelation: He had seen parts of her - the bits he had attended to - but he had never seen her naked either.

The t-shirt he wore beneath his sweater pulled up briefly as he tugged it over his head, and she caught a tantalising glimpse of tight, bare flesh, the lines of his hip bones angling up from his jeans before falling back down. There had been ink there, though: A pattern she was unable to make out in the dark, creeping out from under his belt and stretching up to his ribs.

“What's your tattoo?” she asked immediately as he tossed his sweater onto the chair at the foot of the bed.

He grinned at her, and elected to show rather than tell. The t-shirt he wore beneath followed, and he angled himself towards the thin slice of light coming through the window.

It was an alligator, the tip of its tail hidden down in his jeans, its body describing an arc up his flank until the head came to rest, the end of its snout just beneath his heart. There was a piercing by its nose, another alligator in steel segmented by his nipple, the head on one side, the tail on the other.

“Always loved gators. Ever since I was a kid. Had a toy _cocodril_ bigger than me. Used to sleep with it, sit on it, lie on it. Pretend it could take me anywhere in the world. I know people hate them, but I always felt like they were misunderstood. They gotta eat, after all. Ain't their fault they look scary. An’ they deserve a chance to warm their cold blood up in the sun just like anybody else. Didn't oughta be vilified cuz o’ how they seem.”

“You're right,” said Steph. “I think that applies to everyone. And that's a nice tattoo.”

“Got others,” he said proudly. “Whole heap o’ them, if you wanna take a closer look. Better viewed lyin’ down though….”

Steph giggled.

“You're so smooth,” she said, but she sat on the edge of the bed. “I have a problem though.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It's my zip. It needs to be undone….”

She turned her back to him, lifting her hair away from her neck, and felt the bed sag as he clambered on.

“Hey!” he said accusingly. “All this time you had a tattoo o’ your own.”

There was silence as he studied it.

“Green Day, right?”

He traced the lettering with his finger - one of the ones that had been inside her.

“ _She's a rebel, she's a saint,_ ” he read but then continued. “She's holding on to my heart like a hand grenade….”

“You know it?”

“Oh yeah. Whose name is that?” he asked.

“A friend of mine that passed,” she said.

“Shit, I'm sorry. Had a friend who died when I was a kid. Turned out his dad did it. It's hard to accept when people die young….”

So Oliver had died anyway. Poor Oliver. Steph couldn't save everyone.

“Anyway!” said Lucas brightly. “Let's deal with that zip.”

Steph felt her dress loosen as he he slid the tab down to her waist.

“Problem solved,” he said. “Anythin’ else needs sortin’ out?”

He plucked at the clasp of her bra.

“I think that should probably be undone too,” said Steph, and in a couple of seconds his deft fingers had undone it.

He spread the wings of her dress wide, pressed his chest to her. His lips were touching the hand-grenade heart of her tattoo, hands sliding around her front, and even though she knew where they were going, she still gasped when he touched her breasts, slipping under the cups of her bra. Orgasm or not, she was still aroused, made even more so by the evidence of his own lust poking into her spine, and her nipples were swollen and sensitive. She wasn’t very big, but he seemed in no way disappointed, pinching the stiff points gently between his finger and thumb, teasing them upright.

His skin felt hot, nearly scorching, and she let her head roll forward. He seemed obsessed by the tender skin on her neck, using his teeth to graze her, and she didn’t have to warn him about leaving marks. She curved her back outwards, brushing the hardness beneath his zip. He mumbled into her skin, becoming impatient, pushing her dress of her shoulders. She let her hair drop and helped him, the fabric puddling to her wait, her bra discarded on the floor.

“Turn around…” he pleaded, and she obliged, facing him again.

He was kissing her before she’d fully turned, hands in her hair, and she let her own hands wander, feeling the thrum of his muscles beneath the skin, exploring his ribs, touching the alligator stud and tugging on it. He felt vulnerable, almost frail, but when he shifted position his muscles went tight, gave him more power.

She undid his belt for him, raked his zip down. His hard on crowded through the opening she’d made and she felt him through his shorts. He’d dribbled pre-cum at some point and he was damp there, and she snagged her fingers in a loop under the head of his cock, giving him a little squeeze. He sat back on his haunches to watch as she slipped the head free, rubbing her thumb over the fleshy helmet.

“I’m going to suck your dick,” she told him. “How do you ask for that in French?”

Lucas swallowed hard.

“ _Donne moi une pipe…”_ he said, then added: “ _S’il vous plaȋt.”_

“Oh! Since you asked so nicely,” said Steph, and ducked her head down.

She slipped her left hand down into his shorts, cupping his balls in her hand and pushing the material out of the way at the same time. They were tight in the cradle of her palm, and she let her fingertips tickle the undersides, squeezing gently. Grasping him at the root with her her right hand she stuck out her tongue and let it touch the thread that joined the head to the shaft, swirling it in a tight ring. His hands settled against the back of her head uncertainly.

“Go easy,” he said. “Don’t wanna waste the whole night in your face...”

She ignored him. She was ravenous all of a sudden, saliva gathering on her tongue, and she pulled him into her mouth too quickly, feeling his hands wind into her hair, tugging at the roots.

 _“Putain!_ Steady, _cher…._ ”

She had his helmet in her mouth, tongue slapping at the veins underneath and prepared to go down, sucking on the dense flesh. He tasted spicy, probably due to the Cajun food his mother had been feeding him, but not unpleasantly so. She craned her neck, looking up at him, the whites of his eyes visible in the gloom, and slid the ring of her lips down his cock, clenching her fist around the base.

He groaned, pelvis thrusting forward, dick nudging the roof of her mouth. She opened her throat, gluing her lips to her hand, and brought them both up. She started to work up and down, milking his cock, the bob of her head hypnotic, but when she felt for his perineum with her questing fingertips he pulled away sharply.

“Aw, Steph, nuh...I’m gonna cum too fast….Have a little mercy, huh?”

She sat up. He looked dazed even after the few short minutes she’d spent, and even though she was disappointed she wasn’t getting to really savour her mouthful she was flattered too.

He kissed her again, and they tasted each other in their mouths, a mingling that would be reinforced all too soon. Steph wanted the build up to last forever, but at the same time she couldn’t wait any longer.

He pushed her back onto the bed, letting her wriggle the waistband of his jeans down, but it wasn’t enough for her to have him partially bared. She deserved to have him naked after all this time, all she’d been through. She had waited long enough.

It was always awkward, shedding the last remnants of clothing on a bed: They did it as gracefully as possible but there were a few subdued giggles as Steph tried to wiggle out of her dress and a moment of near disaster when Lucas almost toppled off the bed in the process of getting his jeans off, but it was a comfortable encounter nevertheless. They could withstand the lightening of the mood without adverse effects, and somehow it added to the intimacy.

Lucas was on top of her as soon as he was free, a snake between her spread legs, his tongue busy at her chest while his hands delved beneath her. He clenched the meat of her ass as he sucked on her nipples, the angle of his shoulders blotting out the light from the window.

He’d put his condom on as efficiently as before, pinching the tip and unrolling it, and she could feel the rubbered length prodding against her pussy, nudging the opening either side but not finding the way in.

She had to guide him in, lifting her hips as he found his way, and he entered her with slow intensity, sliding into the slick chute with a reverence that was reflected on his face. There was a little pinch of a frown forming between his eyebrows that she recognised, and she wanted to smooth it away because it reminded her of all the times she’d looked up at him before as he’d fucked her with such grim concentration.

He hit full depth, in up to the hilt, and to her relief his forehead unfurrowed, the frown clearing by itself.

“Oh…. _ça_ _c’est bon!_ ” he told her. “Feels all brand new, but like comin’ home too….”

He rolled his hips, finding a new angle, and Steph planted her feet on the mattress, lifting herself to meet him. She’d learned some French for precisely such an occasion as this - just a few basic phrases, and she unleashed it now, closing her eyes against embarrassment.

“ _Baise-moi….”_ she said. “ _Plus fort!”_

The response was immediate, his dick twitching inside her, and he pulled up.

“Oh yeah, _cher,_ whatever you want -” he gasped, and thrust into her again, harder but not too hard. She felt that little suggestion of pain again, the good kind, the one that promised soreness afterwards, and welcomed it.

“ _Plus vite,_ ” she instructed, and he replied with a laugh that turned into a sob.

“That’s it, you tell me what you want, you’re gonna get it,” he told her. “Get anythin’ you want….”

He pushed himself up and began to fuck her faster. He was looking at her face with wonder rather than concentration, feeding off her responses rather than studying her, and if Steph needed any more reassurance there were his hands, stroking her body possessively, feeling her tense and roll beneath him, travelling the expanse of her belly and chest. His arms were dark with tattoos from his shoulders to his wrists, the sleeves depicting images of cogs and pistons peeking through torn skin like he was part robot but with the odd, somehow masculine, swirl of kudzu vines softening the harsh lines as they wove between them. He was a work of art suspended above her.

“Aw, Steph...I’m sorry...I’m gonna cum…!”

He looked horrified, but she lifted her legs and wrapped them round him, forcing him into her more deeply.

“Do it then!” she said, and watched his face crumple as his cock pulsed inside her.

 

They lay together for a long time, the aftershocks of his ejaculation growing weaker, but even when they’d stopped he didn’t move from her. He had fallen down onto her, arms collapsing beneath him, and puffed and panted with his face nestled into her chest.

Steph put her arms round him, felt the bumps of his spine, the sharp wings of his shoulder blades, the little hollows of his collarbones. She felt the rise and fall of his breathing and the slowly decreasing hammer of his heartbeat, and he didn’t stop her. It was only after an eternity that he heaved himself off her, but he didn’t go far, slumping down next to her with his arm slung across her belly.

“Didn’t know how today was gonna end up when I left the house this mornin’,” he said caonversationally. “Was goin’ to meet up with my Uncle Joe, but I never did…Ain’t complanin’ though - not now.”

“Why didn’t you though?”

“Went to visit him like I planned, but he weren’t there. He’s kinda eccentric - lives in a little shack right in the bayou - an’ he’s pretty much self-sufficient, so maybe he was out fishin’. But I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t a little uncomfortable out there. Joe’s always been a little crazy, but when I got to his shack it was all boarded up and there was some kind o’ mold growin’ over it. And pictures on the walls - like cave paintin’s. Stick figure drawin’s o’ a big man an’ what could o’ been my Aunt Leila. She was a real little woman. Maybe he just got too lonely out there an’ moved on….”

“Could the drawing have been of a little girl?” asked Steph.

“Ain’t likely. They never had no kids,” said Lucas. “Maybe I’ll check up on him again soon. Anyways, if he’d been there, I wouldn’t o’ met you!”

“That’s true,” said Steph, but there was a cold sensation overtaking her and she shivered in the darkness, goosebumps rising up on her skin.

“You cold? Here, get the blanket over you.”

Lucas was tugging the covers up, pulling them across her, and she smiled weakly. She had a horrible suspicion about Lucas’s Uncle Joe, and she’d already decided that if it was the last thing she did, she’d do her very best to make sure Lucas forgot about checking up on him - even if it meant fucking him from now until Christmas.

“You okay?” he asked. “Kinda look like you seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine,” she told him, snuggling gratefully into the circle of his arms. “Don’t you say ‘haint’ round here though?”

“Ha! Not since I was a kid,” said Lucas. “Funny though...don’t laugh, but I swear a saw a ghost when I was little. Looked all blurry like a blind spot in your eye, you know? It was standin’ by the ol’ tree in the corner by the barn, an’ scared me off. Stupid, I know. My father cut that tree down a few days later. I think I may o’ cried about that - I loved climbing that tree! Was dead though, Momma said. Just as well he took it down. Still remember that ghost though. Only one I ever saw….”

He was getting drowsy, his voice slurring, and Steph cradled his head into the crook of her shoulder.

“Ok if I stay?” he mumbled. “Real comfy here...don’t wanna leave.”

“That’s fine, Lucas. Stay as long as you want,” she told him.

“Don’t ever wanna leave….”

“That’s fine too.”

He gave a contented sigh and fell asleep curled up against her.


End file.
